🚨SCOTUS Orders New York City To Respond In Challenge To Stun Gun Ban
The Supreme Court has ordered New York City to respond to a petition asking the justices to review a Second Amendment challenge to the city’s prohibition on stun guns and tasers.
The move comes after the city initially declined to file a response, giving gun-rights advocates renewed hope that the justices may be examining the case more closely.
The Supreme Court docket in Calce v. City of New York shows that the city must now submit its response by October 8.
The Second Amendment Foundation and several individual plaintiffs petitioned the Supreme Court in July after losing their challenge before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
New York City formally waived its right to respond on August 6.
The case was subsequently distributed to the justices for their September 28 conference before the Court issued its September 8 request for a response.
The request does not mean the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the dispute or indicate how any justice would ultimately vote.
The Second Amendment Foundation nevertheless characterized the development as encouraging because the justices now want arguments from both sides before deciding whether to take the case.
SAF argues that New York City’s prohibition violates the Second Amendment by preventing law-abiding residents from possessing electronic weapons for self-defense.
The organization describes stun guns and Tasers as less-lethal defensive arms that are widely possessed elsewhere in the United States.
The litigation began in 2021 and challenges New York City laws that plaintiffs say effectively prohibit individuals from possessing stun guns and Tasers.
The Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s rejection of the challenge in April after concluding that the plaintiffs had failed on the record before the court to establish that stun guns and Tasers were in common use for lawful purposes.
SAF is asking the Supreme Court to reverse that outcome and clarify how lower courts should analyze bans on electronic defensive weapons under the Second Amendment.
Its petition relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Caetano v. Massachusetts.
In Caetano, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected several reasons the Massachusetts high court had used to conclude that stun guns fell outside Second Amendment protection and sent the case back for further proceedings.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, went further in a concurring opinion and argued that Massachusetts’ categorical stun-gun prohibition plainly violated the Second Amendment.
Alito wrote that stun guns were widely owned and accepted as legitimate self-defense weapons even though they were less popular than handguns.
SAF now argues that the Second Circuit repeated essentially the same mistake the Supreme Court corrected a decade ago.
“This case essentially is Caetano 2.0,” the organization argued in its petition.
SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack said the organization remains disappointed that New York City continues defending the prohibition.
Sack said the Supreme Court’s request for a response is a “positive sign,” while acknowledging that the justices have not yet decided whether to grant review.
The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions seeking review each term and agrees to hear only a small percentage of them.
A request for a response can indicate that at least one justice wants more information before the petition is considered, but it does not guarantee that the four votes required to grant certiorari will ultimately materialize.
New York City will now have until October 8 to explain why the justices should leave the Second Circuit ruling intact.
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After that filing and any subsequent reply from the challengers, the justices can decide whether to hear the case, deny review or take another procedural step, The Daily Caller reported.
For now, the significance is narrower but unmistakable: New York City initially chose not to answer the challenge, and the Supreme Court has now told it to respond.
