When the US Supreme Court recently declined to review a lower court decision upholding San Francisco’s law requiring that handguns be stored in a lockbox or secured with a trigger lock, they opened the door to other cities to adopt similar restrictions.
Under San Francisco’s law, handguns kept at home must be kept unloaded in a locked box or fitted with a trigger lock.
When the court voted 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia objecting, to deny certiorari in the case, it gave the green light to other cities and/or states to pass similar laws, and Albany, NY, almost simulataneously began the process of adopting similar legislation.
Justice Clarence Thomas said his fellow justices were derelict in not accepting cases in which challengers say state and local restrictions on gun ownership and use infringe on the Second Amendment rights recognized by the Supreme Court in the 2008 Heller case. That decision overturning DC ‘s almost total prohibition of keeping handguns in the home also involved the District’s requirement that the few guns allowed were to be kept unloaded and locked as in San Francisco.
Since upholding the individual right to bear arms by a 5-4 vote in the 2008 Heller decision and the related 2010 McDonald v. Chicago ruling, the court has generally shied away from accepting other cases which would further clarify firearms civil rights.
Gun rights activists have been unsuccessful in filing appeals for the high court to review other state and municipal laws that are seen as violating the Second Amendment.
Thomas said that the San Francisco law “allows residents to use their handguns for the purpose of self-defense, but it prohibits them from keeping those handguns operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense” during times that “they are most vulnerable.”
A proposed law currently being considered by the Albany City Council would force gunowners to store their weapons in a “secure container” or disable them with a trigger lock whenever they are “out of his or her immediate possession or control” at home. A final vote on the measure had been delayed while lawmakers awaited clarification on several issues, including their legal authority to punish violations by up to a year in jail.