Supreme Court meets Friday and could decide on considering Guns Outside the Home

Guns will be on the table Friday when the Supreme Court meets in private conference to consider potential cases for next fall's docket. 

Just figuratively, of course. The petitions scheduled for potential discussion include three that challenge state or federal gun-control laws.

None of those cases directly raises the next big legal issue in the national debate over guns: whether the right to keep a gun at home for self-defense extends to public places. The justices could choose to take on that issue now, but it would be a stretch. 

However, a federal appeals court panel's divided ruling last week in a California case makes it more likely that the question of guns outside the home will be heading to the high court soon.

Ever since Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a divided court in 2008 that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects the right to possess guns at home, the question of public places has been looming. Many states impose restrictions, such as requiring a demonstrated need to carry a gun, whether concealed or in plain sight. Most lower courts have upheld those restrictions.

To date, the biggest split from that trend involved an Illinois law that was much more restrictive than those in other states. Its ban on carrying concealed weapons in nearly all circumstances was struck down by a 7th Circuit appeals court panel. Rather than appealing to the Supreme Court, however, the state amended the law to allow for public possession, with restrictions. 

The question for the court to answer, eventually, is whether such restrictions are constitutional. The high court has batted down several petitions in recent years from firearms groups rather than answer that question. After the December 2012 school shootings in Newtown, Conn., the issue became more politically charged.

read the rest of the story HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.