New York Times

Justices Turn Away Case About Carrying Guns in Public

By ADAM LIPTAK MAY 5, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a case about
whether the Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry guns in public for
self-defense. As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons.

The case would have required the court to address a question it left open in
2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to keep guns for self-defense in the home. The new
case, Drake v. Jerejian, No. 13-827, concerned whether and how governments
may restrict Second Amendment rights outside the home.

The case involved a New Jersey law that requires people seeking licenses to
carry guns in public to demonstrate a “justifiable need.” In practice, according to
the law’s challengers, “few ordinary people can hope to obtain a New Jersey
handgun carry permit.”

A divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, last year declined to say whether Second
Amendment rights extend beyond the home. Assuming they do, the court said, the
law fit within a longstanding exception to the amendment’s protections.

A version of this article appears in print on May 6, 2014, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Justices Let Law Restrict Taking Guns Into Public.