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December 30, 2024
A little commentary on the Third Circuit's big Second Amendment ruling in Range
Last week, as noted here, the fully Third Circuit again found the federal felon-in-possesion criminal ban to be unconstitutional as applied to Byran Range. This outcome, as well as the 13-2 vote (with judges appointed by six different presidents supporting the outcome), seems like a pretty big deal for the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence. But so far I have seen only a little discussion of the big ruling, no doubt in part due to its timing. Here are a round up of the commentary I have seen:
From GunMag, "The Most Critical 2024 Second Amendment Case"
From Lisa Foundation, "A Good Day at the Range"
From The Reload, "How Rahimi Made Two Judges Switch Sides on Non-Violent Felon Gun Rights"
From the Wall Street Journal, "The Second Amendment, Reawakened: An appeals court says a nonviolent misdemeanor doesn’t end gun rights."
From Washington Gun Law, "One of the Best Second Amendment Rulings in a Long Time"
December 30, 2024 at 06:12 PM | Permalink
Comments
Given that the various courts have essentially reached the same conclusion post-Rahimi as they did pre-Rahimi and that there is a definite split in the circuit, I am not sure that any circuit's ruling on this issue is a "big" decision. Instead, we are simply treading water waiting for the Supremes to do what they should have done last Summer and actually take a case on this issue.
Posted by: tmm | Dec 31, 2024 10:38:08 AM
Fair point, tmm, though I think the lopsided en banc vote and all the (divergent?) opinions makes Range bigger than some of the other rulings to date. That said, we are 100% aligned in thinking it is clear that SCOTUS must soon (re)write another chapter in modern 2A jurisprudence. I would loosely predict we'll get another 2A grant of some sort during the first part of 2025 so that this issue is before the justices for the 2025-26 term. Whether they take Range or something else may turn on a lot of factors --- eg, the new AG/SG, other cases in pipeline, etc.
Posted by: Doug B | Dec 31, 2024 11:23:37 AM
It won't surprise me if Trump's AG simply accepts this loss. Better to take a case with a less sympathetic plaintiff. Easier to get a more restrictive opinion out of SCOTUS that way.
Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Dec 31, 2024 2:07:07 PM
I assume that there are several in the pipeline. My take is that the SG will file for cert (hoping for a GVR) but push for one that is semi-violent to be the one argued on the theory that you, at the very least, want the Court ruling that FIP for violent offenses is fine and accepting a broad interpretation of violent. But, at some point, Court will have to rule on the clearly non-violent (e.g., writing a bad check, forgery, etc.)
Posted by: tmm | Jan 2, 2025 10:31:36 AM
