Is SCOTUS Getting Gun-Shy?

 After it punted a dozen 2A-related cases back down to lower courts for review in light of the Rahimi decision, the Supreme Court won't be hearing any Second Amendment-specific lawsuits in the fall term (though it will decide whether the ATF's rule on unfinished frames and receivers violates the Administrative Procedures Act).  Is the Supreme Court getting gun-shy? On today's Bearing Arms' Cam & Co, California Rifle & Pistol Association president Chuck Michel offers his take on the Court's latest decisions, and what they mean for 2A advocates in the months ahead.

"It could have been worse," is Michel's succinct judgment, and he does have a point. The justices could have simply upheld all of the prohibited person cases where the plaintiff was appealing the loss of their Second Amendment rights, while remanding back to the lower courts the cases where the plaintiffs had prevailed. They could have denied the cert petitions for the Illinois gun and magazine ban cases without comment, instead of the strong statement issued by Justice Clarence Thomas. And they could have rejected outright the Antonyuk case challenging New York's "good moral character" requirement for concealed carry licensees instead of remanding the case back to the Second Circuit for a do-over in light of Rahimi. 

But if it could have been worse, it also could have been better...more