The Supreme Court, in its current incarnation, has been pretty good on gun issues. Not perfect, mind you–**glares in Rahimi**–but pretty good. We got the Bruen decision, for one thing, and Cargill, which allowed the return of bump stocks for those who want them.
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Now, they’re considering homemade firearms in Vanderstock v. Garland.
This is another important case with long-reaching ramifications in either direction. But the Supreme Court didn’t take on all the gun cases they could have. There’s one in particular that they passed on.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by gun dealers to a Maryland county’s rule that sellers of firearms or ammunition must display and distribute literature aimed at reducing gun violence.
The law was passed by Anne Arundel County in 2022 as part of the community’s response to a 2018 mass shooting at a newspaper office in the state capital.
The county says the law, “which requires commercial actors to warn about the risks posed by a potentially dangerous product they sell, is no different than other disclosures ubiquitous in American life.”
The dealers argue that this violates their First Amendment rights to not say a blasted thing, which is fair.
They also argue that being forced to distribute literature about suicides is essentially being required to try to warn people away from buying guns.
In response, the county says they picked a pamphlet from the NSSF specifically so it wouldn’t be anti-gun.
The lower courts figured that the information was non-controversial and was nothing but a product warning. That’s a position I have an issue with.
Understand that this isn’t the worst infringement I’ve ever seen, but there is an issue here that the Court should have ruled on. See, we tend to issue product warnings for goods that the general public might not realize could be dangerous. Tobacco products are a prime example. For years, the tobacco industry hid details about how dangerous their products were, so people thought it was safe enough, at least until they were addicted.
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But guns aren’t like that. Everyone knows what happens if you point a loaded gun at yourself and pull the trigger. They know what happens if you point that loaded gun at someone else and pull it, too. No one who is eligible to buy a gun is unaware of the potential dangers of a firearm.
As such, forcing gun stores to push paraphernalia, even if it comes from a pro-gun source, serves no purpose except to potentially dissuade people from buying guns.
Unfortunately, the Court declined to hear this case. That means the law will stand in Ann Arundel County and will likely pop up in other communities across the country.
In the end, though, no one who is determined to take their own life will be dissuaded from doing so.
Some folks might decide not to buy a gun, though, which we all know was the real purpose, even if they chose a pamphlet from the NSSF.
The Court blew it here, and that bothers me when I think about all the other gun cases we have coming up.
