SCOTUS HEARS CRIES OF MOOTNESS IN NYSR&P CASE!
UNDETERRED, TRUTH TRAIN STILL BARRELS DOWN TRACKS!
by Theresa Inacker, CNJFO Communications Director 12-02-19
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Keep Calm and Litigate On!
The day for oral arguments finally arrived, as attorneys appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in Washington, D.C. to argue disputed matters in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York City. At the heart of the matter, it is a challenge to New York City’s firearm transport ban. Both sides—Pro-Second Amendment folks and anti-rights groups like Big Daddy Bloomberg-funded Everytown, Moms Demand and the Brady folks alike, anxiously awaited a long-overdue conversation on the substance of the Second Amendment’s application outside the home.
Disappointing to some, the Court focused on the issue of mootness more than the merits of the Second Amendment’s application outside the home. The issue of mootness seems so academic and theoretical: Well, it is exactly that. Unlike a right to Keep and Bear arms which is tangible and substantive, mootness isn’t very interesting.
You may be asking what is mootness? A case is moot “when the issues presented are no longer alive or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the lawsuit.” See www.FedBar.Org March/April 2008. Not very exciting, but extremely critical to American jurisprudence.
Left-leaning media are enthusiastically pushing their articles about how the Court does not seem interested in expanding Second Amendment rights after today’s arguments. They think they’ve found an off-ramp for this 2A train barreling down the tracks. I tell them, do not count your chickens before they’ve hatched. If this train car doesn’t get heard on the merits, the Cheeseman case will, or another thereafter.
My pro-Second Amendment folks: do not lose heart. No one knows how the Court will rule. No one knows why a Justice asks a question or remains silent during oral argument. Justice Clarence Thomas asked his first question in three years back in March of 2019 ---that was after ten years of not asking any questions, from 2006 to 2016. I suggest not judging a Justice by his/her questions.
Keep calm and litigate on!
EDITOR's NOTE:
Theresa Inacker is a lawyer who loves Constitutional law and studied how SCOTUS operates. A former Managing Editor of the Seton Hall Law School Constitutional Law Journal, Inacker was admitted to the Supreme Court Bar earlier this year. While some news sources provide a slanted pro-gun or anti-gun Pablum, we at CNJFO strive to give you, our readers, expert ANALYSIS while others chime-in with half-truths, innuendo, and supposition. SCOTUS will release their opinion on mootness prior to hearing the actual case---IF that is to be our destiny. Stay tuned, and as more SCOTUS news breaks, we'll give Inacker her much-deserved "ink".
---The Editors
