Supreme Court weighs whether to enter gun debate amid calls for stricter limits – By Melissa Quinn (CBS News) / April 8 2021
Washington — A pair of mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado last month thrust gun control back to the forefront of public debate, with Democrats in Congress and President Biden calling for swift legislative action.
But amid the public outcry over gun violence, the Supreme Court’s nine members are meeting behind closed doors to discuss whether to add to next term’s docket disputes over gun regulations, with a ruling from the justices potentially having far-reaching implications for firearms restrictions at the federal and state levels.
The high court could say as soon as mid-April whether it will hear cases involving the constitutionality of licenses to carry concealed handguns in public or the rights of convicted felons to possess firearms, and gun rights supporters — and some of the justices themselves — argue the Supreme Court is long overdue to define the reach of the Second Amendment.
“[T]he nation is split, with the Second Amendment alive and well in the vast middle of the nation, and those same rights disregarded near the coasts,” Paul Clement, the former solicitor general who is representing gun owners challenging New York’s licensing rules, told the Supreme Court in a filing last month. “Whatever else the framers intended in enshrining the Second Amendment in our charter of fundamental freedoms and guaranteeing rights to ‘keep and bear arms’ to all ‘the people,’ it was not to tolerate a nation divided on an issue this significant.”
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