SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 9/25/23

By Andrew Willinger on September 25, 2023
Categories: Regulations, Second Amendment, Supreme Court

As the November 7 oral argument in Rahimi approaches, the respondent’s brief is due on Wednesday, September 27. Any amicus briefs in support of the respondent are due one week later, on October 4. The Center for Prosecution Integrity filed a brief in support of the respondent ahead of schedule, on September 22.

The Supreme Court’s annual Long Conference—at which the justices consider petitions for certiorari filed and briefed over the summer—will take place tomorrow, September 26, with an orders list to follow next Monday. The Court will consider two cases we are tracking at the Long Conference: Vullo (which involves a First Amendment retaliation claim by the NRA based on New York state guidance about the reputational risks of doing business with gun-rights organizations), and Kyung Chang (which deals with whether a magazine is a “component part of a firearm” under PLCAA). But perhaps the bigger news in terms of pending petitions is that the Court is now set to consider two cases involving the ATF’s regulation of bump stocks at its October 6 conference: Cargill and Guedes. The government has argued across all bump stock cases (including Hardin, where the respondent filed his response brief on September 20) that Cargill presents the best “vehicle” for the Court to resolve the APA challenges to the ATF’s bump stock rule. For more background on some of the administrative law issues implicated by the bump stock cases, see this earlier blog post.

As the new Supreme Court term starts up, we will resume publishing this update on a weekly basis.

[CORRECTION 9/26/23: The piece has been corrected to reflect that amicus briefs in support of a party are due 7 days after the brief for the party supported, under the Supreme Court’s amicus rules.]

[...]