The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court’s decision to uphold a Massachusetts gun law and told the lower court to reconsider the case on Monday.
The law was controversial because it required a license for the purchase and possession of handguns and also prohibited the purchase of a handgun from anyone convicted of a crime involving a gun, even if that crime was a nonviolent misdemeanor.
The US District Court of Massachusetts originally upheld the case, Morin v. Lyver, saying that the law was constitutional. However, after the Supreme Court threw out a New York gun law in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, the appeals court was ordered to reconsider its decision in light of the ruling made by the high court in the New York case.
The New York law required people to demonstrate a “proper cause” to receive a concealed handgun permit. Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote for the majority in that case, stated that the court knows “of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need."
Thomas also noted that the “right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”
The decision on Monday was not signed by any of the justices and did not include a dissenting opinion.