This is where the rubber hits the road with the .gov crowd.
8
B. Although the court of appeals correctly held that
the Second Amendment protects an individual right, it
did not apply the correct standard for evaluating respondent’s
Second Amendment claim. Like other provisions
of the Constitution that secure individual rights, the
Second Amendment’s protection of individual rights
does not render all laws limiting gun ownership automatically
invalid. To the contrary, the Second Amendment,
properly construed, allows for reasonable regulation
of firearms, must be interpreted in light of context
and history, and is subject to important exceptions, such
as the rule that convicted felons may be denied firearms
because those persons have never been understood to be
within the Amendment’s protections. Nothing in the
Second Amendment properly understood—and certainly
no principle necessary to decide this case—calls for invalidation
of the numerous federal laws regulating firearms.
When, as here, a law directly limits the private possession
of “Arms” in a way that has no grounding in
Framing-era practice, the Second Amendment requires
that the law be subject to heightened scrutiny that considers
(a) the practical impact of the challenged restrictions
on the plaintiff ’s ability to possess firearms for
lawful purposes (which depends in turn on the nature
and functional adequacy of available alternatives), and
(b) the strength of the government’s interest in enforcement
of the relevant restriction. Cf. Burdick v.
Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434 (1992). Under that intermediate
level of review, the “rigorousness” of the inquiry
depends on the degree of the burden on protected conduct,
and important regulatory interests are typically
sufficient to justify reasonable restrictions.
They want it kicked back to the lower court so that they can rule more narrowly. Or they want a opinion that is so narrow as to be useless to any other case brought before the court.
Edited to add:
I think it is taking a big gamble on their part with the statements like "the Second amendment PROPERLY CONSTRUED" and "the Second amendment PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD". Directed at the SCOTUS just might rub them the wrong way. Kind of like calling someone ignorant and then expecting them to side with you in a argument.
