In July, a D.C. Circuit panel held, by a 2-1 vote, that the Second Amendment secures a right to carry guns in public. This leaves considerable room for “shall-issue” licensing requirements (under which pretty much any law-abiding adult can get a license but might have to undergo various checks, training and the like) and other regulations; but the old D.C. rule, under which the government could deny you a carry license just because it thought you didn’t have a good enough reason, was struck down.
D.C. asked for rehearing en banc, by the whole D.C. Circuit; but today, the court denied rehearing, apparently without any judge requesting a vote. D.C. can now petition the Supreme Court for review, and I think the court will almost certainly agree to hear the case: There would be a request for review from the D.C. government (the court takes such requests for review from governments fairly seriously). And there is a split of authority on the subject between the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 9th Circuits on the general no-right-to-carry side (though with some differences in the analysis among the courts) and the 7th Circuit, D.C. Circuit and Illinois Supreme Court on the right-to-carry side. Should be very interesting to see.
by Eugene Volokh
