- Sep 4, 2005
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An unusually large pileup of Second Amendment challenges has landed at the Supreme Court, which will consider taking up the cases behind closed doors Friday.
It would add to what is already a major term for gun rights. The justices previously agreed to hear two cases early next year that involve whether unlawful drug users can carry firearms and Hawaii’s gun permitting regime.
I have mixed feeling about these. I'll explain why.
Preface: Scotus can only evaluate what's presented to them and elevated to their court, not perfect world scenarios to make new legal stipulations.
Hawaii and similar states having a "may issue" permitting system.
The two sides of that coin, a person pays the application fees, spends money to dot all of the I's and cross all the T's, and then an issuing agency says "Nah, sorry, we're not going to give you a carry permit".
The flip side, an issuing agency has guys like this show up:
"Hi, I passed the background check did the paperwork, the gremlins who live in my closet said I should carry a gun, rabbit skins feel nice don't they...anyway...can I have my permit please?"
...perhaps some discretion is a good thing in some instances.
On the "felon" stuff...I've long maintained that people with non-violent felonies (like cooking the books) are less of a public threat than a person with violent misdemeanors on their record, and shouldn't be denied the right of self defense. The problem is, SCOTUS has a narrow scope to work with to establish precedent and isn't involving that sort of nuance to make the distinction between violent and non-violent felonies, and I certainly don't want former armed robbers being legally licensed to carry.
As far as the drug users thing, that's also too broad. Despite marijuana being closer to alcohol on the "risk spectrum", its lumped in with PCP and heroin (federally), so SCOTUS striking down laws on behalf of some casual pot users could have the negative effect of allowing some hardcore drug users to get their hands on guns.
