The United States Supreme Court will soon be considering a case litigated on behalf of the NRA and several other plaintiffs, Jackson v. San Francisco. This case challenges San Francisco’s ordinance requiring gun owners to lock or disable handguns in their own homes at all times unless it is being carried on his or her person. The Jacksoncase was one of many coordinated civil rights cases filed in the wake of the Heller decision in 2008. The Jacksoncase is being litigated by NRA’s west coast counsel at Michel and Associates, P.C. and esteemed Supreme Court litigator Paul Clement. CRPA submitted amicus briefs in the case.
In March of 2014, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the overreaching ordinance, and the court declined to rehear the case by an eleven judge “en banc” panel. As the NRA’s petition for Supreme Court review explains, the Ninth Circuit’s decision directly contradicts the Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.
In January of this year, twenty-five state attorneys general joined Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and filed a brief supporting the NRA’s request. In their brief, the 26 state attorneys general noted that they “have a profound interest in protecting the fundamental constitutional rights of their citizens” and, unless San Francisco’s law is invalidated, responsible citizens will be unable to keep “operable firearms in defense of hearth and home.”
The CRPA thanks Attorney General Bruning and his staff for their leadership on this brief, and the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming for their support.
Earlier this month, San Francisco’s attorneys filed its opposition to the plaintiffs’ petition for Supreme Court review. Plaintiffs’ reply brief will be filed soon. That brief, and all other filings in the case can be viewed here.
The Jackson decision highlights the problems with the analytical framework for considering Second Amendment challenges as fashioned by the Ninth Circuit in the United States v. Chovan case.That subjective “intermediate scrutiny” framework allows political and personal bias to creep into the judicial review process, and effectively creates a toothless and overly deferential review of government infringements on Second Amendment rights. Under this type of watered-down judicial “standard of review,” judges who are so inclined can find that virtually all restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms are constitutional simply by accepting post hoc government justifications uncritically, or by characterizing an infringement as “insubstantial.”
Should the high court accept the case, the plaintiffs will seek a standard of judicial review in Second Amendment cases that is consistent with the instructions and admonishments provided by the Supreme Court in the Heller case.
A decision on whether the Supreme Court will directly reverse the 9th Circuit’s decision or accept the case for further briefing and oral argument is expected by the end of June.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20150402/california-unlocking-your-freedoms
