The December massacre of 20 Connecticut schoolchildren by a man armed with an assault rifle has triggered a national debate about gun regulation, a dispiriting rush to buy guns, and the speedy adoption in New York of legislation bearing on various aspects of weapons ownership and use. All of this comes at a tumultuous time for constitutional rights, as the courts have been grappling with a torrent of cases unleashed by two U.S. Supreme Court decisions holding for the first time that the Second Amendment confers on individualsas opposed to state militiasa right to bear arms.
In three cases decided in the last eight months, the Second Circuit has started to confront fundamental questions about the contours of the Second Amendment and the critical issue of its relationship to other protections in the Bill of Rights, particularly those in the First Amendment. Two of these cases appear to be test cases and likely are part of a national strategy by gun-owner advocates to expand upon the newly discovered Second Amendment.
A Brief Background
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