Fearing Supreme Court Loss, New York Tries to Make Gun Case Vanish

The N.R.A. came around in the end. In the Supreme Court, it supported the suit, working closely with the lawyers who had brought it.The court’s decision in the Heller case established an individual right to own guns, imperiling gun control laws around the nation. But aside from one follow-up case[1] in 2010, the court has not elaborated on the scope of the right.With the departure of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the arrival of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the court seems ready to start. It agreed to hear the New York case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York[2], No. 18-280, just months after Justice Kavanaugh joined the court. Unless the case is dismissed, it will be argued in the fall.The question of whether the changes to the city’s gun regulation will make the case moot is a hard one. The city lost an initial skirmish at the court last month when the justices turned down its request to suspend the filing of briefs while changes to the regulation were considered.The plaintiffs opposed that request[3]. “To state the obvious, a proposed amendment is not law,” they wrote.The changes to the regulations will happen soon enough, though, and the Supreme Court will then have to consider whether there is anything left to decide.The court has said[4] the “voluntary cessation” of government policies does not make cases moot if the government remains free to reinstate them after the cases are dismissed. But formal changes in laws may be a different matter[5].To hear the plaintiffs tell it, the court should not reward cynical gamesmanship.“The proposed rule making,” they wrote, “appears to be the product not of a change of heart, but rather of a carefully calculated effort to frustrate this court’s review.”References^ one follow-up case (www.nytimes.com)^ New York

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