More than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally expanded its interpretation of the Second Amendment, federal courts continue to strike down state restrictions on gun ownership.
Since the 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen that firearm regulations must have some historical comparison going back to the nation’s founding, some state restrictions have been ruled unconstitutional. lower courts are still figuring out the limits of that historical test and have not come to a broad agreement on key gun-related laws.
Wins for gun rights supporters have mounted. Over the past two years, federal courts have struck down bans on assault weapons in trend-setting blue states such as California and Illinois, reports Stateline.
In October, a federal judge ruled that New York’s ban on carrying a concealed firearm on private property open to the public is unconstitutional. In September, a federal judge in northern Illinois ruled the state’s ban on carrying a concealed firearm on public transit violated the Second Amendment.
In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that found Minnesota’s age restriction on residents carrying a handgun in public was unconstitutional.
The Trace found that federal courts have ruled on more than 1,600 Bruen-based challenges to gun laws.
The number of rulings is on the rise, straining the court system and raising public safety concerns. There were, on average, 91 rulings per month in 2024, up from 63 per month in 2023.
The vast majority of rulings answered Second Amendment challenges by criminal defendants. There were 1,460 in total. In most of these cases, the defendant sought to have a gun charge dismissed or a conviction overturned as unconstitutional.
The remaining 150 rulings were in civil lawsuits by gun rights groups, individuals, and other organizations.
In criminal cases, judges have sided with defendants to invalidate gun regulations in 53 cases, 4 percent of the total. Most of these rulings apply only to the defendant and have a more limited effect.
Civil challenges have been more successful, with judges invalidating gun regulations in 48 cases. These lawsuits tend to be more sweeping challenges against a gun restriction in general, as applied to anyone, resulting in broader implications, including a law being entirely overturned.
Bill Sack of the Second Amendment Foundation, a Bellevue, Wa.-based legal advocacy organization that has flooded the courts with challenges to gun regulations nationwide, said, “The second Bruen came down, there was the starting gun for a sprint, for which we have not stopped yet,” he told Stateline. “Stuff is ripe for a fresh challenge.”
Sack and other gun rights advocates are now asking the courts to define the Supreme Court’s new Bruen standard: a series of “who, what and where” questions about which gun rights limitations are allowed under the latest interpretation of the Second Amendment.
The major question: Who can own a firearm? What sort of firearm equipment can someone possess? Where can people possess a firearm?
“We are making major inroads,” Sack said. “The arc of history will show that this time period was very good for us and very bad for them.”
Esther Sanchez-Gomez pf the Giffords Law Center said gun-rights advocates are not winning all cases.
In August, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld Maryland’s ban on assault weapons. The issue might need to be resolved by the Supreme Court. “There’s movement on assault weapons,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that it’s a lost issue universally. Rather, I’d say that there’s a lot of different results coming out and that courts have yet to coalesce.”
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