Bruen’s ‘Lack of Clarity’ Has Reconfigured the Gun Control Judicial Landscape

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a New York law limiting the concealed carry of handguns in public areas, there has been an increasing lack of clarity on gun restrictions, experts told ABC News.

“The [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] decision really opens up a whole new way of analyzing the legality of firearm regulation and so there is no experience really to go by, so it’s essentially a free for all,” Michael Siegel, a faculty member at Tufts School of Medicine who studies firearm violence, told ABC News in an interview.

Siegel said the Bruen decision created a new system for how the constitutionality of firearm laws are to be judged where “nothing is really clear” and it is a trial and error situation.

The Bruen decision was “monumental” for gun rights and gave them a lot of key victories in the last few months, Alan Gottlieb, the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, told ABC News in an interview.

“We’ve knocked out some laws in California, we’ve got restraining orders against some of the ones in New York, we just got the temporary restraining order against the one in New Jersey,” Gottlieb said.

There are currently close to 50 cases in federal court challenging gun control laws across the country, Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb criticized lawmakers for passing what he said are more restrictive laws that are not drawn narrowly enough, despite the Bruen decision.

— Nadine El-Bawab in Supreme Court decision creates confusion over which firearm restrictions are constitutional