The Supreme Court declined to rule on a restrictive New Jersey gun law, which prohibits the majority of residents from carrying guns in public.
The justices dismissed the latest attempt to draw the high court into the contentious gun control debate; the challenge was backed by the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners Foundation.
The law at hand prohibits New Jersey residents from carrying a gun unless they can justify a urgent need for it “as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life.”
The case would have been the biggest gun control case since 2008, when the Court upheld the right to keep handguns at home for self-defense.
“The Second Amendment guarantees the right to carry weapons for the purpose of self-defense—not just for self-defense within the home, but for self-defense, period,” the NRA argued in its brief, according to USA Today. But New Jersey’s acting Attorney General John Hoffman argued that the state legislature had decided the “inherent danger” widespread carrying of guns posed was greater.
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