Several federal circuit courts have decided Second Amendment cases over the past few months. This post summarizes them. The cases and the reasoning behind them are not all completely consistent, but collectively, the courts continue to interpret the Second Amendment as permitting substantial levels of gun control. High-capacity magazine ban upheld. Ass’n of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. New Jersey, __ F.3d __, 2018 WL 6378284 (3d Cir. Dec. 5, 2018) (ruling that New Jersey’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds does not violate the Second Amendment; the court reasoned that the ban did not “severely burden” the “core” of the Second Amendment right, and so should be evaluated under intermediate scrutiny, and that the ban served the important interest of protecting citizens from mass shootings because shooters without high-capacity magazines would need to reload more often and victims could escape or fight back during reloading; the opinion notes that five other federal circuits have ruled the same way on similar bans; the dissent argues that the majority is watering down the Second Amendment) States may require citizens to show “good cause” before granting a permit to carry outside the home. Gould v. Morgan, 907 F.3d 659 (1st Cir. 2018) (upholding a Massachusetts license-to-carry law that allows cities to require citizens to show a “good reason,” beyond a generalized desire for self-defense, before issuing a license; although the court found “no national consensus . . . concerning the right to public carriage of firearms” at [...]
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