Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that there is a constitutional right to carry a concealed firearm in public.
Some observers have suggested that similar rulings will soon follow, a prospect that has CNN worried.
Supreme Court decision brings new test for gun laws
As Breitbart noted, the nation’s highest judicial body found in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen that New York’s requirement that those seeking a concealed weapons permit must show a special need to carry a gun violated the Second Amendment.
Authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court’s opinion also laid out a new standard under which gun laws are to be evaluated.
It holds that “the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”
Breitbart reported last week that U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby issued a temporary restraining order blocking New York’s new carry law, arguing that it was also too restrictive.
Critics say the ruling will lead to confusion
This led CNN contributor Tierney Sneed to warn this week that “[s]everal other laws now face new legal challenges under the precedent, among them zoning restrictions barring shooting ranges, licensing and training laws and the federal ban on certain misdemeanor offenders from possessing firearms.”
Sneed went on to cite former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissenting opinion in Bruen, which complained that the new standard is “deeply impractical.”
Breyer and the three other liberal justices went on to assert that it imposes “a task on the lower courts that judges cannot easily accomplish.”
Carlton Larson is a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law who specializes in the Second Amendment, and he suggested that Bruen will lead to confusion among local authorities.
“Imagine if you are a district attorney, somewhere in some random state, you suddenly get a lawsuit brought on this, on some gun law you’ve got, and then you’ve got maybe 30 days to respond to the lawsuit. What are you going to do?” Larson told CNN.
“I am a legal historian by training,” Larson said. “I would find it very, very hard to turn around quickly on that and come up with something thoughtful.”