http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/30294531/us-appeals-court-upholds-gun-laws-after-newtown-massacre

"That may be so," the 2nd Circuit said. "But gun-control legislation 'need not strike at all evils at the same time' to be constitutional."
The appeals court said gun rights groups' claims that the ban on assault weapons will primarily disarm law-abiding citizens was "speculative at best, and certainly not strong enough to overcome the substantial deference we owe to predictive judgments of the legislature on matters of public safety."

In other words, we passed laws just because....

in case you're curious, here's the text:

http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/8cc3b91c-bec1-4942-b02a-4b12125496b2/1/doc/14-36_14-319_opn.pdf


The most interesting thing to note in this decision is the court deciding to use the intermediate scrutiny analysis rather than using a strict scrutiny analysis (Carolene Products and Footnote Four).  Typically, an appeals court will use use their power of judicial review to strike down laws if the court applies intermediate scrutiny, but there are a few cases in which the law will survive the intermediate analysis; this case is an excellent example.

On the other hand, had the court applied a strict scrutiny analysis, this law will almost certainly have been held unconstitutional.  I can only think of one case in which SCOTUS has applied a strict scrutiny analysis and held in the favor of the government, Korematsu.

Not looking so good... I wonder how this will fair in the supreme court... if it makes it there.

If the appeals court just upheld the previous state ruling then chance are the suspreme court wont hear the case since they tend to pick the cases where the lower courts and upper courts disagree.

Not looking so good... I wonder how this will fair in the supreme court... if it makes it there.

If the appeals court just upheld the previous state ruling then chance are the suspreme court wont hear the case since they tend to pick the cases where the lower courts and upper courts disagree.

that's not entirely true. Oftentimes SCOTUS grants cert to decide issues in which there is a split among the federal appeals circuits.

and i wouldn't write off the issue just yet.  The fact that SCOTUS has already granted cert and decided in two major cases recently shows that they may be willing to address this issue further.  In some sense, this case history is actually really similar to the case history for same sex rights.  For years SCOTUS danced around the issue of whether discrimination based on sexual orientation deserved a higher level of scrutiny.  There is a pretty long list of cases that spanned decades where the court could not agree with itself on the level of scrutiny.  it was only recently that the court finally came out with a strong opinion that finally put that issue to rest.  One could argue that it's still possible for the court to get around its own majority by finding a way to distinguish the issue however.

regardless, there is at least some chance remaining that the court will reach the scrutiny issue regarding the Second Amendment in the near future.  At the very least, the court rejected the very unforgiving, rational basis test in favor of applying intermediate as a bare minimum.  Take a look at the discussion and the footnotes on page 29 and on of the decision i linked earlier.  It touches upon the essence of the Heller decision and highlights the fact that the lower courts really have no guidance in deciding this issue.  One could argue that the circuit courts were left with too much discretion to decide on the proper level of judicial review to apply.  Keep in mind that the Second Circuit has been historically known to be anti-gun.  it comes as no surprise that this court decided to bend their interpretation to conform to their agenda.  If you read closely enough in the area that i pointed you to, you'll see that the court recognizes that it's acting on its own and obviously without any precedent or persuasive guidance.