Alito Argued in Dissent: NYC Gun Law Is Unconstitutional

Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito on Monday argued in a dissent the New York City gun law case the court recently sent back to the lower courts is unconstitutional, Fox News reports.

The court refused to hear a case on a statute in New York City's recent gun law that concerns restricting transportation of firearms outside city limits because the statute was later amended, and the original version of the law was later overruled by a state law after the Supreme Court agreed to review it.

However, Alito argued in his dissent, the case is not moot, and the original law as written was clearly unconstitutional. He wrote it is "not a close question" whether the original statute violated the Second Amendment, and if the Supreme Court had ruled on it then, the gun owners who sued could have sought damages from the city.

"If history is not sufficient to show that the New York City ordinance is unconstitutional, any doubt is dispelled by the weakness of the City's showing that its travel restriction significantly promoted public safety. Although the courts below claimed to apply heightened scrutiny, there was nothing heightened about what they did," Alito wrote.

"In sum, the City's travel restriction burdened the very right recognized in Heller," Alito said, a reference to the pivotal gun rights case District of Columbia v. Heller. "History provides no support for a restriction of this type. The City's public safety arguments were weak on their face, were not substantiated in any way, and were accepted below with no serious probing. And once we granted review in this case, the City's public safety concerns evaporated."

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