Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh posts about In Re Hahn, a New York case where the court refused to renew the petitioner's pistol license. The petitioner had been previously involved in a scuffle that resulted in a conviction of menacing in the second degree and criminal mischief in the fourth degree. In denying the petitioner's request to renew his firearm license, the court deferred to the licensing agency's characterization of the petitioner's demeanor as "bizarre and irrational" and that he "lacked the self-control necessary to carry a weapon."
The petitioner noted that the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) had suggested that firearms could be restricted from those who are deemed to be mentally ill, and that no such finding of mental illness had occurred in this case. The court noted that Heller's list of (potentially) acceptable situations where firearms could be restricted was not exhaustive and that in a situation like this where there is some sort of detail set forth about the emotional health of the applicant, the court's denial does not violate the Second Amendment.
I don't think that the court's reasoning is correct. This decision will apparently restrict the applicant from possessing a firearm in the home, a right that Heller says is protected by the Second Amendment. This restriction seems to be based on a determination of how the applicant acted in the hearing and whether the court thought the applicant was antagonistic or had emotional outbursts. The vagueness of this determination aside, the court's invocation of Heller's list of situations where firearms could be acceptably restricted is an apparent assertion that this situation is simply an unlisted scenario where it is acceptable to restrict firearms.
By extending the list of outright exceptions to Heller's holding that firearms in the home are protected to a situation as subjective and undefined as a lack of emotional stability, the court expands the exception to the point where it swallows any meaningful protection that Heller offers. Courts typically conclude that if a restriction falls into Heller's various "exceptions," such as restrictions of firearm possession by felons, the mentally ill, and possession of firearms in schools or government property, the restriction does not violate the Second Amendment. By citing Heller's list of exceptions, courts are usually able to uphold these restrictions without needing to worry a great deal about levels of scrutiny since Heller seems to have already reached a conclusion on these restrictions. Here the court seems to be taking a similar approach: by categorizing its restriction on the firearm license as an unlisted Heller exception, the court is able to approve of this restriction without invoking any rational basis, intermediate, or strict scrutiny analysis.
Admittedly this case may have been decided the right way. The trial court was able to directly observe the applicant and indicate that the applicant was behaving in a combative manner. Given the applicant's repeated instances of emotional outbursts in the presence of the court, the court may have had a moderately strong argument that the applicant should not have his license renewed. Notwithstanding these facts in support of the court's ruling, the garbled reasoning of the court prevents any systematic review and analysis of the arguments that could have been made. By relying on an unwritten Heller exception, the court does not specify any level of scrutiny and fails to create a workable test. While the applicant may very well have not deserved a firearm license, the court's failure to clearly enunciate why this denial is acceptable under any level of scrutiny is an unacceptably opaque way of reaching this conclusion.
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