Sullivan Act Next?

Jacob reports that Bob Levy says he’ll target New York City’s Sullivan Act after Heller.  Chicago would be a more obvious target post-Heller, because of the similarity with the D.C. ban.  Wouldn’t it be best to keep the courts focused strictly on the incorporation issue, rather than have to deal with extraneous issues?  There’s little doubt in my mind that New York City’s Sullivan Act is unconstitutional, but to me, that’s a more appropriate target after we go for incorporation using an outright ban similar to The Districts.   The Sullivan Act can wait.

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12 thoughts on “Sullivan Act Next?”

  1. The article goes on to say: Mr. Levy, who has financed Mr. Heller’s suit, said he currently has no plan to bring a similar suit challenging New York City’s gun regulations.

    I think we was just saying that it would happen eventually, not what his next step was.

  3. Sebastian, I agree with you. We should use the very small increments as we expand the scope.

    +1 on Levy not saying “New York in next”. Just that it will be challenged.

  4. Either way, if it’s NY or Illinois, the democratic contenders aren’t going to be able to hide their true feelings for long.

  5. He was talking to The Sun, which is a New York City newspaper, so he was probably just mentioning NYC’s gun laws as an example that the reporter would be familiar. I.E. he was targeting his response to the audience. My guess is Chicago is still next.

  6. Pingback: Justin Buist » Blog Archive » On Heller

  7. Incorporation would be a good bet for the next major case. So would the 1986 machine gun ban.

  8. The 1986 machine gun ban would be among the last things you’d want to challenge. You want a good body of law built up before you do that. The Courts are going to be very prejudiced to the idea of machine gun rights, and you want them to have a little wiggle room for shenanigans as possible.

  10. Unfortunately, we’re probably going to get challenges to the NFA whether we want them or not. Because this is a criminal matter, we’re not going to have the luxury the civil rights movement did, of being able to carefully pick our strategy. A defense attorney will take a case forward, and will lose. The hope is that they won’t lose in every single federal circuit.

    Either way, the ideal move would be to use the court strategy to shore up your defenses. Even if we freeze the status quo in place, that’s not too bad a result. If you don’t have to worry so much about losing ground, you can take a considerably more offensive stance legislatively, and you’ll want the issue to be controversial before you bring it before The Court.

  12. Feel free to come up to the media room and meet everyone. Did you register as a reader with the blog bash? There are percs.

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