Guns cover tables in front of Camden Mayor Dana Redd, and New Jersey Attor- ney General Jeffrey Chiesa, after a gun buyback event.
What’s worse: the federal government micromanaging the laws state citizens must abide or other states doing it?
Wyoming has recently petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) for permission to submit an amicus brief in tandem with 18 other states on behalf of John M. Drake, a New Jersey man who is challenging a gun control law in that state.
“That would not be something about which I would speculate,” said Renny MacKay, Governor Matt Mead’s Communication Director, in regards to how likely the SCOTUS is to actually accept the brief.
What is interesting about MacKay’s reluctance to speculate is that the 18 fellow states which are joining in this petition are all from the Midwest, Southeast, South, Southwest, and Canada (Alaska). None of the states joining in on this effort to become involved with this case are neighbors of New Jersey.
The basic idea behind a federal government system is to preserve state rights, the point being that states are inherently different. A rural state such as Wyoming shares very little in demographics, geography or culture with New Jersey.
An editorial published in New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, pointedly stated that Wyoming has no business getting involved in SCOTUS cases on behalf of New Jersey citizens. Specifically because gun laws that exist in New Jersey don’t resemble gun laws in Wyoming for a reason.
New Jersey is highly urban, and has a much less homogenous population. Lax gun laws there would have a far different impact than such laws do here. Wyoming’s rural setting and low-density population make gun violence a smaller risk here than in other states.
“I don’t quite understand why we’d get involved in a New Jersey Supreme Court case,” said Nathan Yanchek, a senior Political Science student at UW. “I mean, I can see that the court’s ruling would set a precedent, but I don’t think it’s likely that the law will be upheld anyway.”
The New Jersey law states that a person must prove they have justifiable need for a concealed carry permit before being granted one.
“That sounds like a pretty vague law to me,” Yanchek said. “The Supreme Court doesn’t like vagueness. How would someone prove they have justifiable need? Is there a specific criterion of justifiable need?”
The law’s likely overturning isn’t why Wyoming, et al. shouldn’t be getting involved, however; it’s because New Jersey doesn’t want a state that shares no similarities with it to lobby on its behalf.
It’s understandable that Wyoming should be concerned about the outcome of the law. As Mackay puts it, “This case and its reasoning have serious implications if the federal government and/or other courts use this opinion to restrict an individual’s right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.”
All well and good, but the case is going to proceed however it does with or without the involvement of other states. Submitting a brief on behalf of another state is not the correct action to take.
If New Jersey got together a coalition of strongly liberal states to submit an amicus brief on behalf of a citizen of Jackson Hole who was challenging Wyoming’s marriage law, our legislators would scream bloody murder.
No state appreciates an overbearing federal government, so perhaps the states themselves should avoid interfering with each other’s laws. This should especially be the case when the outcome could yield drastically different results in each state in question.
