Tuesday round-up
on Dec 18, 2012 at 10:36 am
In the wake of Friday’s school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, much of the coverage of the Court focused on the Court and gun control.
At Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston argues that, “[i]f Americans are persuaded that the courts are getting the Second Amendment wrong, and are convinced that cutting back on the Amendment’s scope is a way to reduce gun violence, they have it within their political power to demand that legislatures apply that Amendment sparingly, and they have it within their citizen power to try to get the Constitution amended.” And at Think Progress, Ian Millhiser argues that “[t]ntil the Supreme Court removes the special protections accorded to handguns . . . lawmakers will have to fight the most dangerous weapon in the nation with one arm tied behind their backs.”
Elsewhere, at Jost on Justice, Ken Jost discusses a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (which Marissa covered in yesterday’s round-up) striking down an Illinois law which banned the carrying of concealed weapons in public. “The issue,” predicts Jost, “is headed, inexorably, toward the Supreme Court.” Ariane de Vogue of ABC News and Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal also have coverage of the Seventh Circuit’s decision, while the editorial board of The New York Times emphasizes that when “‘gun violence is a serious problem,’ as Justice Scalia said it is in the United States, the courts must be very cautious about extending the individual right to own a gun.”
Briefly:
- Writing for this blog, Lyle Denniston reports that yesterday Texas received permission from a three-judge U.S. District Court in Washington to pursue an immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding its new voter ID law.
- Bloomberg Law has a short YouTube video speculating about which Supreme Court Justice will step down next, and who might be named as his or her replacement.
- In an “Academic highlight” for this blog, Amanda Frost discusses Professor Richard Hasen’s recent piece on the “Sixth Circuit’s surprising ‘resurrection’ of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore.”
- Also at this blog, Lyle Denniston provides a day-by-day look at the calendar of oral arguments for the Court’s sitting that begins on February 19.
- The Supreme Court Review has posted a “Supreme Podcast” offering an in-depth primer on the two same-sex marriage cases in which the Court recently granted review: United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry.
