Posts Tagged ‘Guns in Public’

Over the past four years, our nation’s courts have become a major battleground in the debate about gun violence in our communities. Right now, people who want to carry loaded firearms on public streets are forcing judges across the country to question the scope of the Second Amendment. But where should judges turn for guidance in evaluating these claims? The Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision in 2008 effectively upended the legal understanding of the Second Amendment that had existed for almost eighty years. When it comes to gun litigation, courts are now having to evaluate how to keep our communities safe with little Second Amendment case law to guide them.

The Law Center is helping to fill that void through amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in significant Second Amendment cases across the country. Because we are the only organization in the country that tracks Second Amendment litigation, national, state, and local firearms laws, and pending firearms legislation nationwide, we have unique expertise that can help courts understand the critical importance of smart laws to prevent gun violence. Through amicus briefs, we can present that expertise to courts shaping the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Amicus briefs enable us to get involved in precedent-setting cases that have nationwide significance, since numerous challenges to similar gun laws are currently pending before courts across the country. We recently filed an amicus brief in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Hightower v. Boston, in which we argued that a Massachusetts law requiring a license to carry a concealed weapon in public does not violate the Second Amendment. When the court issued its decision upholding the law on August 30th, it became the first federal appellate court in the nation to issue a decision on a Second Amendment challenge to a concealed carry law. Six other federal appellate courts are currently facing similar challenges.  READ MORE »

As courts across the country hear Second Amendment challenges against important state gun laws, LCPGV is weighing in, turning our legal expertise into a series of amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs filed in several significant cases.

Three of these cases — Moore v. Madigan and Shepard v. Madigan in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and People v. Aguilar in the Illinois Supreme Court — involve Second Amendment challenges to Illinois statutes that prohibit the carrying of firearms (either openly or concealed) in public places. Illinois is the only state the continues to prohibit both open and concealed carry. In all three cases, the LCPGV briefs argue that: 1) carrying firearms outside the home for self-defense is not within the scope of the Second Amendment; and 2) even if possessing firearms in public is considered within the scope of Second Amendment protection, Illinois’ ban on carrying guns in public is constitutional.

We made similar arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Hightower v. City of Boston. The Hightower case involves a Second Amendment challenge to Massachusetts’ firearm licensing law, which enables law enforcement to deny an application to carry a concealed weapon if the applicant fails to demonstrate he or she is a person suitable to own or possess such firearms. Our Hightower brief argues that the Second Amendment does not apply, and that even if it did, the “suitable person” standard easily survives scrutiny.

Photo by Jonathan Gibby/Getty Images

On April 14, 2012, Arizona Governor Janice Brewer vetoed a bill, for the second year in a row, that would have weakened restrictions on carrying a loaded firearm in public buildings and on public property.  Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a bill on March 5, 2012 that would have created reciprocity with concealed weapons permits from all other states and expanded current stand your ground provisions outside of the home. In South Dakota on March 19, 2012, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard vetoed a bill that would have allowed the carrying of concealed weapons without a permit.

Want to see more success stories? You can find them here.

State laws allowing concealed, loaded handguns in public have proliferated across the country in recent years. Despite the public’s opposition to these laws, more people can carry loaded guns in more places now than at any other time in modern history. LCPGV’s most recent publication, Guns in Public Places: The Increasing Threat of Hidden Guns in America, examines the dramatic shift toward permissive state laws that regulate who can carry guns in public and the surprising places in which they can carry them.

Guns in Public Places also highlights the encouraging recent victories against the gun lobby’s push to expand guns in public. For example, guns on campus bills were defeated in at least 11 states in 2011, and courts across the country have rejected Second Amendment challenges to strong concealed carry laws. These and other victories provide hope that the public’s common sense view that concealed, loaded guns do not belong in public places, will ultimately carry the day.

Read the complete publication here to learn more about gun regulation in your area.