Federal court: strict scrutiny for 2nd

Via email from Mike B. we have a ruling in Morris v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (D. Idaho Jan. 10, 2014). And as Mike pointed out in his email this affects my stomping grounds where I have carried many times on lands directly addressed in the ruling when I had no idea such stupid regulations even existed.

Eugene Volokh, Dave Hardy, Say Uncle, and Sebastian all commented on the ruling. Hardy was the only one that even mentioned the judge says the strict scrutiny must be used when determining whether a law or regulations infringes upon the 2nd Amendment. The court said:

The regulation at issue would ban firearms and ammunition in a tent on the Corps’ sites. This ban poses a substantial burden on a core Second Amendment right and is therefore subject to strict scrutiny.

While the ban on carrying firearms for self-defense may impose a burden on this core right of the Second Amendment severe enough to call for strict scrutiny, it is unnecessary for the Court to decide that issue because the regulation fails to pass muster even if intermediate scrutiny is applied.

If strict scrutiny is required to regulate the carrying a firearm for self-defense this will almost certainly mean constitutional carry will become the law of the land.

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7 thoughts on “Federal court: strict scrutiny for 2nd

  1. The Oregon Court of Appeals had previously ruled on a similar issue. A weekender prospector was packing in his State campsite, and a Stater arrested him, saying that Oregon law only permitted carriage within his tent. ORCOA ruled that the entire rented campsite equalled his house, since it had separate spaces for “living room” and “kitchen”. CHL was not involved.

    • Good outcome.

      From a “common-sense” standpoint, how the heck is he supposed to get the gun from his vehicle to his tent, and back? Also, if a tent is a “temporary residence” and subject to home-like legal protections, doesn’t that make a reasonable surrounding area (i.e. the campsite) the equivalent of a “yard”?

  2. Same here.
    Then again, the only correct way to construe the Constitution is to apply strict scrutiny across the board. The way the courts use the concept of “strict scrutiny” is as an excuse to make stuff up in whatever way they feel like, except when dealing with a few currently-favored parts of the Constitution that they take somewhat more seriously. “Strict scrutiny” is lawyer-speak for “we take this a bit more seriously”. What excuse do they have for not taking seriously Article 1 Section 8, or the 9th Amendment, or the recess appointments clause, or the requirement of quorum?

  3. A conflict on the standard of review is very good for us. From what I’ve read, Scalia is pretty pissed off that people have been using something other than strict scrutiny. If the court takes up a case to resolve that conflict, I think we’ll be in good shape.

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