We are three weeks away from the start of the new Supreme Court term.  While the Supreme Court (specifically Chief Justice john Roberts) tries to present itself as outside of politics, the reality is that some members of the Supreme Court encourage politically controversial cases.  Even without such efforts, courts have become the first resort for people who do not like political decisions.

As of this point in the year, the Supreme Court has announced the cases that it will be hearing in its October and November argument sessions.  It has also taken some other cases for argument, but it has not yet scheduled them for argument.  (More on how argument works and how cases are taken are in an “appendix” at the end of this post.)

The first potentially controversial case of the term is the “ghost guns” case — Garland vs. VanDerStok.  The issue in this case is whether the regulations that the ATF has proposed for ghost guns (guns which are assembled from parts by the user) is consistent with the federal statutes on firearms.  As we have seen last year with the bump stock case and others, the Supreme Court has taken the position that it will determine whether proposed regulations are consistent with statutes and it tends to strictly interpret the firearms statutes in a way that makes it hard for ATF to keep pace with changes in the gun market.  This case will be heard on October 8 — the second day of the term. Continue Reading...