Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Impending Supreme Court Rulings May Change America
By Sean O'Driscoll
Senior Crime and Courts Reporter
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The new Supreme Court term begins on Monday, October 7. With it comes major cases that will help define life in the United States, from gun control to online pornography.
Here are the major cases the court will be considering this term:
Self-Assembly Ghost Guns
If a gun comes in separate pieces that you must assemble yourself, are you being sold a gun or gun parts? If it's the latter, then why should the buyer have to comply with gun registration and other paperwork?
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That's the question the Supreme Court will have to consider when it hears oral arguments on its second day of term.
On October 8, the court heard arguments in Garland v. VanDerStok, a challenge to a regulation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that places new requirements on previously untraceable "ghost guns" assembled by the buyer.
The untraceable gun parts are typically purchased online and their use has surged in recent years.
During the arguments, several of the conservative-leaning judges expressed skepticism at the gun manufacturer's position.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, told Peter Patterson, the attorney for the ghost gun manufacturers, that his legal framework "seems a little made up."
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The ATF rule, introduced in April 2022, amends the definition of a firearm to include self-assembly kits. It also stipulated that partially assembled weapons that can easily be converted to full firearms must be registered as guns.
That means the owners must have a gun license and undergo background checks, and the guns must have traceable serial numbers.
Gun dealers challenged the regulation and were victorious in a federal appeal court. The government is now challenging that decision.
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek that the case will be a very interesting test for the Supreme Court.
"The current court has been very protective of gun rights, for example, by holding in Garland v. Cargill that the law regulating machine guns didn't allow the executive branch to pass a regulation limiting bump stocks, which in operation allow rapid fire much like machine guns," he said.
In addition, through its June decision in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo case, "the current court has limited the executive branch's authority to expand laws through administrative regulations."
"Unlike the Cargill case on bump stocks, the ghost gun regulation does not expand on Congress's definition—it simply follows it," Germain said.
"The outcome of the case will reveal whether a majority of the Supreme Court stands on constitutional principle or whether they are political hacks abusing their positions to legislate from the bench.
"I am probably in the minority among law professors, but I expect they will model for lower courts the importance of following the law and ruling on principle, regardless of their personal political beliefs," he said.
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Gender Transition
In U.S. v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court will consider a Tennessee law that bans gender transition treatments for minors.
More than 20 states have passed laws that block minors' access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender-affirming surgery.
The drugs in question can be used to treat other medical conditions unrelated to gender identification.
Tennessee's law, which was enacted in March, prohibits health care providers from providing hormones or puberty blockers to "enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex."
Two transgender boys and one transgender girl are challenging the law, claiming that it violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
A federal district court struck down the Tennessee law, and that decision was overturned on appeal.
Germain told Newsweek that he would be "very surprised" if the Supreme Court struck down the Tennessee law.
"Allowing the use of drugs for certain conditions and not others does not strike me as violating equal protection. But it's the ultimate political hot potato these days," he said.
Age Verification for Porn Sites
In Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, the court will consider a Texas law that requires porn websites to verify a user's age.
The Texas law, enacted in June 2023, required that users be 18 or over to view content on adult websites where one-third of the content could be harmful to minors. In addition, porn websites must display health warnings about the psychological risks of adult material.
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There has been a growing trend of introducing such laws.
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia have all enacted age verification laws.
Eric C. Chaffee, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told Newsweek that the case will test the limits of free speech.
"Even with this high standard for restrictions on speech, opponents of age-verification laws may have a difficult time prevailing in this case. They argue that these kinds of age-verification laws are an attempt to burden adult access to constitutionally protected speech. Protecting children has long been held by the Supreme Court to be a compelling government interest," he said.
"The case will turn on whether the Court believes that age-verification provides the least restrictive means of protecting minors from pornography in cyberspace."
Douglas Mirell, partner at Greenberg Glusker in Los Angeles, told Newsweek that pornography receives full First Amendment protection so long as it "doesn't cross the line into legally defined obscenity" or involve the portrayal of children.
Mirell said he would not like to guess which way the Supreme Court will rule but said that recent First Amendment decisions have not been along simple partisan lines.
"I don't like to prognosticate. However, it is certainly true that there are a number of decisions by this court in which First Amendment protection has cut across the liberal/conservative divide. So I would not be surprised if the same pattern held true in this case, even though it emanates from Texas."
Asked if parents could sue online porn companies if their children view adult material, Mirell said that parents "generally have responsibility for controlling the actions of their children."
"So any platform that was sued by parents whose child viewed inappropriate content would undoubtedly assert that it was the parents' failure to properly supervise their children that was the proximate cause of any damage allegedly suffered."
Correction 10/07/24, 1:41 p.m ET: This article was updated to clarify that Garland v. Cargill concerned bump stocks, not bump stops as originally reported.
Update 10/07/24 3:34p.m ET: This article was updated to add the comments of Douglas Mirell.
Update 10/19/24 at 4:17 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include details of Supreme Court arguments in the ghost gun case.
Update 10/19/24 3:39 a.m ET: This article was updated to include details of the October 8 oral arguments on ghost guns
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