Marcia Coyle is reporting for the New York Law Journal the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to a New York City law that restricts the transport of weapons across city borders, thereby returning to one of the court's most controversial areas for the first time in years. The justices have turned away a number of challenges to state and local gun regulations since their 2008 decision in the Heller case, recognizing an individual's right to possess a gun in the home for self defense, as well as a 2010 decision that applied the Second Amendment to the states. The justices Jan. 22, granted review in the case filed by New York State Rifle & Pistol Association against the city of New York. Under city law, gun owners are permitted to transport their handguns, unloaded and in a locked container, only to and from firing ranges within the city for target practice and competitions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last year rejected the association’s claims the law violated the Second Amendment. In its appeal to the high court, the association argued that a “New Yorker cannot transport his handgun to his second home for the core constitutional purpose of self-defense, to an upstate county to participate in a shooting competition, or even across the bridge to a neighboring city for target practice.” Justice Clarence Thomas, joined in the past by Justice Neil Gorsuch, has vigorously dissented from past refusals to take on more Second Amendment cases, calling the amendment a “disfavored right” and “this court’s constitutional orphan.” Read the full story in the New York Law Journal.