Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, with his bestselling book. Source: A&E.

The definition of reality television has changed a lot in the past decade. Once upon a time, the cable channel known as TLC was called The Learning Channel, the History Channel actually had a lot of history programming, and the Arts and Entertainment Network (which we now call A&E) had lots of artsy programming.

The channels served as for-profit extensions of the type of educational programming offered by PBS. In fact, The Learning Channel was founded by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under the Nixon administration in 1972, and privatized in the 1980s.

But in the pursuit of profits, the three networks now thrive on offerings such as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (from TLC); Pawn Stars (from History Channel); and Duck Dynasty (from A&E).

So a show like Constitution USA, which just finished its first run on PBS this week, would have been a natural as a “real” reality TV show about 15 years ago. Instead, the four-part series, with a gaggle of corporate sponsors and positive media reviews, found a welcome home on PBS.

The show features NPR radio show host Peter Sagal riding a motorcycle around America in search of answers about the Constitution’s ability to keep up with modern society.

You can watch the entire series on the PBS website and judge for yourself. There are lots of questions and answers, and real people who are deeply engaged in constitutional issues. (You’ll also see a few National Constitution Center trustees among the bunch, too.)

One memorable moment in the series is in Part Two, when Sagal sits down with some biking friends at the Arizona Leathernecks Motorcycle Club to discuss the Bill of Rights and individual freedom. The club is made up of Marines who aren’t currently in active service (though as Sagal will tell you, there’s no such thing as an ex-Marine).

The club members also happen to carry pocket Constitutions with them when they ride, just in case they need to settle any arguments about individual rights, like riding without a helmet.

The subject of the Second Amendment didn’t come up with the Leathernecks, at least in the interview shown on the series, but it is at the core of the hottest show on that other form of reality TV.

The surprise hit Duck Dynasty maybe shouldn’t have caught TV executives by surprise. Shows about family lifestyles have done well in recent years, from the original Jon & Kate Plus 8 to the adventures of the Duggar family. And even Honey Boo Boo’s critics will admit that it is a show about a close-knit family.

For the Robertson family on Duck Dynasty, the First and Second Amendments are part of their mantra of faith, family, ducks—and the Constitution.

The family’s most recent first-run show on A&E drew almost 10 million viewers, a blockbuster number for a reality TV show.

The Louisiana-based Robertsons have made out quite well selling duck calls and hunting-related gear, and they’ve also been on the road promoting their show, business, and philosophy.

At a recent appearance in Castle Rock, Colorado, patriarch Phil Robertson entertained a crowd of 2,000 people at a private school fundraiser, with tales about God, the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson.

According to a local newspaper, Robertson also has opinions about the separation of church and state, a topic that was important to Jefferson, too, in a different way.

“The Founding Fathers would be shocked that there was not biblical instruction in our schools,” Robertson told reporters at a press conference before the appearances. He also spoke about Jefferson at the school, mentioning a phrase that was actually said by Dr. Benjamin Rush back in the day.

“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion,” Robertson said.

At another appearance, in Midland, Texas, Robertson attributed part of his business success to “constitutionally protected and biblically sanctioned” duck hunting.

Another reality TV pundit who at least occasionally touches on constitutional issues is Larry the Cable Guy, who is known to his family and friends as Dan Whitney. His first two comedy albums were called “Right to Bare Arms” and “Morning Constitutions.”

Larry, like Peter Sagal, has been traveling across America in search of answers. In Larry’s case, the quest just started its third season on History Channel. In past episodes, Larry has appeared with a professional Abraham Lincoln portrayer in Illinois; spent a day at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.; and joined the TSA at an airport.

In a 2012 episode devoted to guns, Larry dug into the origins of the Second Amendment and squirrel hunting. (Yes, there is a connection; here is the video.)

“Why am I doing a show on guns in America? We are the greatest country in the world because we have the right to bear arms,” he said.

But there is one constitutional quote widely attributed to Larry back in 2011 that was said by someone else:

“They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.”

That’s actually a line attributed to George Carlin in 2005, a few years before the legendary comedian passed away.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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The Next 10 Amendments: Right to bear arms

Here’s how to participate:

1. Check out the resources in the sidebar at right to learn more about the historical context and current events related to this issue.
2. In the comments below, share your thoughts and explore what others are saying. (Please keep your comments respectful and on topic.)
3. Check back each week for the latest discussion topic.
4. In early September, cast your vote in a referendum on potential amendments, gathered from participant comments.

Discussion is moderated by Chris Phillips, research fellow of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of the nonprofit organization Democracy Café.

Now, it’s your turn to weigh in: Does the Second Amendment need to be changed or clarified? Should we expand or limit the Second Amendment right of the people to bear arms?

(Note to readers on Yahoo! News: If you want to take part in the debate, use this link and comment at the end of the story: http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/?p=25476.)

Cody Wilson tests gun. Courtesy Defense Distributed.

The eight-month experiment by Cody Wilson ended with a gun that can be assembled out of plastic parts, and made potentially lethal with the addition of a household nail and a bullet. Video has surfaced of Wilson firing the gun during testing.

Wilson put the plans on the Internet for free, and they were quickly downloaded by more than 100,000 people.

The project was also quickly condemned by politicians. Chuck Schumer, the U.S. senator and gun control advocate from New York, wants plastic guns banned by Congress.

Schumer’s concerns include the theory that the gun could be smuggled past airport security and used on an airplane, and that widespread access to the gun’s blueprints could lead to an explosion of cheap guns.

Schumer pointed to a character played by John Malkovich in the movie In the Line of Fire who builds a plastic and wooden gun in an attempt to assassinate a president.

The debate over plastic guns goes back several decades, including a reference in Die Hard 2 to the alleged ability of the Glock 17, an Austrian-made pistol, to get through scanners because of its ceramic body.

Critics of the 3-D plastic gun were quick to point out several factors. First, a gun made from plastic would have a short shelf life, and it could pose a greater danger to its user than an intended victim because of the construction material.

One deterrent would be the cost of buying a 3-D printer (starting at a $1,000) and the materials needed. (Wilson’s used printer cost $8,000.) Guns are available online, in stores and on the street at much lower prices.

Schumer also expressed a concern about how regulating the publishing of gun-making instructions could have First Amendment considerations.

“Obviously there are First Amendment issues,” Schumer told CNBC, as reported on the Free Republic website. “We’ve had this issue about bombs being put on the Internet in the past. And obviously someone could go overseas and put something on the Internet where our laws don’t govern.”

The issue of homemade guns has been taken up by the courts in the past. In the case of United States v. Stewart in 2003, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a part of judgment against Robert W. Stewart, Jr., who sold parts kits online to make homemade machine guns. (Stewart was also charged with gun possession from a prior case.)

The Supreme Court decided not to hear the Stewart case, but it told the Ninth Circuit to reconsider it in light of another Supreme Court case, Gonzales v. Raich.

In the Raich case, the court ruled that the Commerce Clause gave Congress to right to ban homegrown marijuana, even when states approved it for medical uses, because of the potential effects on interstate commerce.

In 2006, the Ninth Circuit issued a new ruling in the Stewart case, saying that, “We therefore hold that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that in the aggregate, possession of homemade machine guns could substantially affect interstate commerce in machine guns.”

On Wilson’s website, he says the goal of the project is to “change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out.”

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Wilson’s group is set up as a 501(c)3 non-profit. He doesn’t sell the pistol’s plans, but he does sell plastic gun parts unrelated to the pistol as part of his fundraising efforts. He also accepts online donations and has ads from online parts sellers.

For now, the debate over Wilson’s gun will probably center on its legality under current regulations. The plans require a six ounce piece of metal as part of the pistol, to meet requirements under the Undetectable Firearms Act.

Last fall, Wilson had issues with the maker of the 3-D printer. In October 2012, Stratasys seized a printer that Wilson had leased from the company. He later bought the second-hand printer to complete his project.

At the time, Wilson told reporters he thought his project was legal and he talked to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which told him the idea of a plastic gun was in a regulatory “grey area.”

The AP reported that Wilson had obtained a manufacture’s license from the ATF before making his pistol.

Scott Bomboy is editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

The statements at issue:

“My amendment … is designed to protect the fundamental Second Amendment rights of American citizens who are traveling or temporarily away from home while they hold a concealed handgun license. … Our amendment would allow persons with concealed handgun permits be allowed to carry those weapons as they travel between jurisdictions and avoid any sort of prosecution. This does not create a national standard.”

– Senator John Cornyn, Texas Republican, in remarks on the Senate floor on April 17, describing Amendment No. 719 to the proposed gun control bill then under debate.

“Amendment No. 719 would create a public safety crisis by forcing nearly every state to recognize the concealed carry permits issued by other states, even if the permit holder could not qualify for a permit in the state to which he is traveling. … In other words, states with the weakest conceal carry permitting standards will set the national standard regardless of existing state laws.”

– Senator Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, in remarks on the Senate floor on the same day, discussing the Cornyn proposal.

We checked the Constitution, and…

One of the most popular proposals that came closest to getting approved by the U.S. Senate last week was titled the “Constitutional Concealed Carry Act”–the amendment with Senator Cornyn as the lead sponsor. But among the amendments the Senate considered, that one might have failed a constitutional test in court.

If Senator Cornyn’s amendment had gained just three more votes, it would have been approved. It did attract 57 votes, more than a majority, but the rules in effect at the time required 60. Only one other amendment, to stop criminal trafficking in guns, was slightly more popular among the rejected amendments–with 58 votes.

For some years, not just recently, gun rights advocates have wanted assurances that they could have their guns with them when they traveled. They gained a right to travel with their guns under a 1986 law, the Firearms Owners Protection Act, but that right only extended to places where carrying the gun would have been legal anyway.

There has always been some doubt about how wide that freedom was.  The National Rifle Association has noted on its website that “many states and localities have laws governing the transportation of firearms,” and it advised travelers to “be aware of these laws and comply with legal requirements in each jurisdiction.”

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When U.S. senators were putting together proposed amendments for the new debate on gun laws this month, a number embraced the proposal that Senator Cornyn sponsored. The purpose of that appeared clearly to preempt–that is, override–any state or local laws that imposed significant restrictions on the right to carry a gun into that state or into any of its cities.

This was called a “reciprocity” proposal, because the proposal provided that an individual who had a license in his or her home state to carry a concealed gun was guaranteed a right to do so only in any state that also granted licenses. But the laws of various states vary a good deal on just to whom and when a license will be issued to carry a concealed gun. So, if a state government–or a local government–had a stricter law than the one in a traveler’s home state, that tighter law would narrow the right to carry–unless, of course, a federal law trumped it.

As debated in the Senate, the Cornyn proposal specified that the right it was assuring would exist “notwithstanding the law of any state or political subdivision thereof to the contrary.” In non-technical terms, what that meant was that if a state or local law was more restrictive than the traveler’s home state on the right to carry a concealed gun, the limiting law had to yield.

When sponsors of the amendment described it, they stressed that it would not set a national standard. When opponents described it, they stressed that it would make the most permissive law on carrying a gun apply throughout the nation.

The Cornyn proposal was based upon Congress’s authority under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, allowing Congress to pass laws to regulate business that crosses state lines. The amendment would allow the cross-country movement only of guns that had been purchased in “interstate commerce.” That, though, would encompass virtually all guns, since few remain in the state where they were manufactured.

But in a 1995 Supreme Court decision, striking down the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, the justices curtailed Congress’ power to use the Commerce Clause as a basis for overriding local control on guns near schools. That decision, in U.S. v. Lopez, was a major rebuff to Congress’ authority to deal with gun possession at the local community level.

If the Cornyn proposal were ever to become a federal law, it almost certainly would be challenged as beyond Congress’ Commerce Clause power, because it would preempt the broad power that state governments–and their subdivisions–have to pass laws to protect public safety. Such a proposal also very likely would have been challenged as an interference with the power of states under the 10th Amendment to exercise dominant control over public safety matters.

Such challenges probably would have been met by an argument that, because the Second Amendment now protects an individual right to have a gun, Congress has authority to pass laws to protect that right.  But there is no language of the Second Amendment (unlike that in some other amendments) that gives Congress explicit power to enforce its terms, so Congress probably could only use its Commerce Clause powers to justify such a measure. That would seem to make it quite vulnerable, constitutionally.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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President Barack Obama and supporters of measures such as universal background checks and assault weapons bans have vowed to fight on, and some political observers see the Senate’s vote as a game-changer for the Republicans.

But a quick look at states that have aggressive gun control measures already in place show that part of the math in 2016 could favor the Democrats.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence keeps its own scorecard of states that have significant gun laws on their books.  It says 19 states get at least a one-star rating from the group, while 31 states earn zero stars, with few or no gun control laws.

Those 19 states, with the addition of the District of Columbia, account for 271 electoral votes; 270 electoral votes are needed to win a presidential election.

At least one state in that group, Alabama, wouldn’t likely back a Democratic presidential candidate. But three swing states—Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire—aren’t yet in the Brady Campaign’s top 19 list.

If several of those states were to show wider public support for stricter gun measures, the issue could be one of the hot topics in the 2016 campaign.

Already, big states that control large chunks of electoral votes have strong state gun laws on their books. California has the strictest gun control measures in the country, according to the Brady Campaign, followed by New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Three other big states have aggressive gun laws: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Other states with gun measures include North Carolina and Virginia, which are two large swing states.

The debate over gun laws probably won’t go away over the next four years, and potential candidates were already taking sides on the issue as soon as this January.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is set to sign one of the toughest state gun control laws in the country, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has touted his state’s record.

Republicans Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul aggressively campaigned against background check expansion in the Senate.

The Democratic candidates will likely argue that polling data suggests a vast amount of Americans support universal background checks, and the failure of Congress to act is a sign of a broken system.

GOP candidates will argue that most Americans support the Second Amendment right to own guns, and they have no problem with responsible laws that don’t infringe on those rights.

In any event, it doesn’t seem like gun control and gun rights will fade away as issues in the next few years.

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The vote was 54 to 46 in favor of the amendment, but it needed 60 votes to be added on to the bill.

After the vote, President Barack Obama let his opinions be known.

“This was a pretty shameful day for Washington, but this effort is not over,” Obama said in the Rose Garden.

Comments made by Joe Manchin, who along with Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey had proposed a compromise amendment, signaled the amendment was in deep trouble early in the day.

Manchin told an NBC reporter he didn’t expect the measure to pass, and those comments were quickly publicized on Twitter. Manchin’s office then tried to explain the statement, to no avail. Toomey made similar comments.

Then Senator Kelly Ayotte, a key potential swing vote, announced she wouldn’t support the Manchin-Toomey amendment.

North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp also publicly said she couldn’t vote in favor of the amendment.

The amendment’s supporters needed 60 votes for the measure to pass. The Democrats have 53 votes in the Senate and two independent senators who usually vote with the Democrats. But with some Democrats publicly opposed to the measure, the bill’s supporters needed nine Republicans to break ranks.

Three other measures are currently seen as having a good chance of passing in the Senate and the House: tougher measures against “straw” purchasers of guns used in crimes; more efforts to divert resources to mental health programs; and more funding for security for schools.

The absence of the background check amendment might speed up the process of getting a bill passed by the Senate and into the House for a vote.  Republicans were considering the addition of dozens of amendments to stall the bill if the Manchin-Toomey proposal was successful.

However, Democrats aren’t expected to support a GOP-sponsored background check measure.

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The statement at issue:

“Opinion polls suggest that a majority recognize a right to bear arms, subject to reasonable regulations protecting public safety. This strong dual commitment, if clarified and entrenched in our Constitution, could reassure most, though not all, of us. Before you mock the idea of a constitutional amendment, consider that hardly anyone is happy with our unstable status quo: gun enthusiasts fear their rights are under constant threat; gun control advocates point to the danger of illegal guns and easy access to firearms. … A new gun-rights amendment would need to articulate a basic consensus that would let both sides claim victory.”

 – Zachary Elkins, a government professor at the University of Texas, in an op-ed column April 5 in The New York Times, “Rewrite The Second Amendment: The fight over gun rights can be settled with a constitutional change.”

We checked the Constitution, and…

In the 222 years since the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, Americans in every generation have toyed with the idea of adding more amendments. At any given point, at least a handful of proposed changes circulate in the body politic. And yet, only 17 additional amendments have actually made it into the Constitution.

There are a couple of lessons in this history. One of them, in fact, can be found in a phrase that Professor Elkins wrote at the end of his column: the need for “a basic consensus” before an amendment can succeed. Another is that, since 1803 and the Supreme Court decision in Marbury v. Madison, Americans have more or less trusted the Supreme Court to provide change when it was deemed truly necessary.

And, if the Supreme Court got it wrong, contradicting some “basic consensus” prevailing across the country, the formal process of amendment under Article V has been available to make the correction. Indeed, six of the 17 amendments since 1791–just about a third–were added for just that purpose.

It is important to note, though, that only two of those were quick in coming: the 11th Amendment, reinforcing state sovereignty, came just two years after a ruling by the justices in 1793, and the 26th Amendment, guaranteeing 18 as the minimum age for voting in all elections, came within about a year after a 1970 decision.

The other four responses to the court had to simmer for some time–one might say until a basic consensus had formed. Those were the three post-Civil War amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th), not added until at least eight years after the court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, and the 16th Amendment, allowing an income tax, 18 years following the court’s decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Co..

Judicial review–the notion that the job of interpreting the Constitution’s formal meaning is better performed as a judicial than a political function–is now widely accepted in America, although not universally. One thing clearly to its credit is that it has prevented the Constitution from ballooning into a huge document that reflects every passing fancy in politics, without any sense of lasting value. Free people need to know what the constitutional rules are, and frequent changes in the basic rules add too much uncertainty.

Professor Elkins’ plea for a clarifying amendment for the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a “right to keep and bear arms” is based largely on his argument that the Supreme Court has not yet adopted “fixed doctrine” on what the Second Amendment means. That is his view of the justices’ 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. Its unsettled nature, he suggests, was due to the 5-4 vote in that case.

The very consensus that he finds expressed in current public opinion polling, though, is exactly what the court said about the Second Amendment five years ago: “a right to bear arms, subject to reasonable regulations protecting public safety.” Those are the professor’s words, and they are an accurate summary of the decision. The amendment that went into the Constitution in 1791 finally became, more than two centuries later, a guarantee of a personal right to own a gun, but the decision stressed that it was not an absolute right because it could be regulated by “reasonable” gun control.

It is true that the Heller ruling left unanswered a number of specific questions about gun rights. Maybe the most important of those is whether the personal right to possess firearms reaches beyond the home. But lower courts have been in the process, for the past five years, of making decisions on that very point, and sooner or later, the Supreme Court is almost certain to step in to sort it out.

What has been happening over the years since 2008 is that the reach of the Second Amendment has been percolating, both in the courts and in politics. And, while the country waits for the Supreme Court to get involved again, to provide some new constitutional guidance, the opinion polls cited by the Texas professor might be interpreted to suggest that the country as a whole thinks the court got it about right.

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The Founders made it quite difficult to alter the Constitution, and they did that intentionally. As one watches these days the difficulty in Congress and in state legislatures in crafting new laws to deal with gun violence, it hardly seems likely that two-thirds of each house of Congress and three-fourths of all the states could now agree on language to amend the Second Amendment.

A dominant characteristic of the language of the American Constitution is that much of it is quite general. To illustrate: When the Constitution guarantees “due process,” what process is due? When it promises “equal protection of the laws,” who is equal to whom? When it creates a right to “bear arms,” where does that apply, and to what kind of firearms?

The Supreme Court’s most important gun rights decision so far, in the Heller case, allowed for “reasonable” regulations. Could the country agree on a different and more workable word or phrase to replace that, a replacement that would result in “fixed doctrine”?  Not likely.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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The Senate might start the debate over a background check compromise proposed last week by two senators, Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, on Tuesday. That will mark the start of the official public debate over an issue that many see as the most meaningful change in a series of measures proposed after the Sandy Hook shootings.

Three other measures are currently seen as having a good chance of passing in the Senate: tougher measures against “straw” purchasers of guns used in crimes; more efforts to divert resources to mental health programs; and more funding for security for schools.

Currently, the Democrats have 53 votes in the Senate and two independent senators who usually vote with the Democrats. Most likely, 60 votes will be needed for any amendment to be added to legislation.

Two factors complicate the process: Some Democrats could split from the caucus, based on how they feel the issue affects their constituents, and any bill passed by the Senate still needs to be approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Three Democrats, Mark Begich, Heidi Heitkamp, and Mark Pryor, may not vote in favor of the Manchin-Toomey amendment. So the Democrats would need to get eight GOP senators to make up the difference.

Based on the reports coming out of Washington, here are the senators to watch as this very public discussion over the Second Amendment unravels this week.

1. Majority Leader Harry Reid. It will be up to Reid to manage the amendment process in the House and how (and when) votes are taken. With a filibuster and numerous other amendments possible, Reid will have the final say on how key parts of the debate proceed.

2. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Republican from Kentucky doesn’t support background checks in their current form. If McConnell changes his stance, possibly from the introduction of a rival background check proposed by a GOP senator, it could present some Democrats with a dilemma.

3. Max Baucus. The Democratic senator from Montana didn’t vote to block the gun control bill from going to the full Senate, but said he wouldn’t support it in the end. He didn’t comment on the Manchin-Toomey amendment.

4. Mary Landrieu. The Louisiana Democrat is expected to have a tough re-election battle. She told CNN recently that she supported background checks in theory but would vote to reflect her constituents’ wishes.

5. Susan Collins. The Maine Republican said over the weekend that she will vote to support the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment.

6. John McCain. The former presidential candidate from Arizona is on the fence and has supported background checks in the past. If McCain endorses the Manchin-Toomey amendment, he could bring several other Republicans with him.

7. Tom Coburn. The senator from Oklahoma has proposed an alternative amendment that would greatly limit record-keeping and give states the option to expand enforcement. Senator John Thune is rumored to be the lawmaker who will introduce the Coburn amendment.

8. Mark Kirk. The Illinois Republican publicly supported the Manchin-Toomey amendment last week, giving the bill another GOP vote.

9. Kay Hagan. The first-term North Carolina Democrat is being targeted in an ad campaign from Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group. She has publicly supported background checks, but she also comes from a state that went to Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.

10. Pat Toomey. The Pennsylvania senator’s late entrance into bipartisan negotiations over background checks helped craft a compromise with Joe Manchin. Toomey is also making the rounds on news talk shows to discuss the amendment.

To be sure, other senators will have a public, vocal role in the debate process, from Democrat Chuck Schumer to Republicans Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. But the vote could come down to a bipartisan effort to influence some of the GOP members who opposed a filibuster, including Kelly Ayotte, Jeff Flake, and Dean Heller.

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The petition in the case of Kachalsky v. Cacace asked the Supreme Court to rule on two questions: Does the Second Amendment permit handguns for self-defense outside the home? And, do state officials violate the Second Amendment by denying handgun carry licenses in certain cases?

The writ of certiorari petition for the case was backed by the Second Amendment Foundation. The justices, as the process works at the court, didn’t disclose why they declined to hear the case.

Five New Yorkers brought the case to court after they were denied permits to carry their handguns in public. That state’s law requires people who want to carry a concealed handgun to prove they have a special reason before getting a license.

Alan Gura, an attorney involved with two other gun-related cases that were heard by the court, was on the legal team seeking a date in front of the nine justices. He had publicly said before the court’s decision on Monday that the case was a threat to the Second Amendment.

“The New York law is in complete conflict with the idea that people enjoy a Second Amendment right to bear arms,” Gura said in a pre-decision story from USA Today.

Gura was part of the team that argued the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case in 2008.

The Heller ruling established that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

That right, however, was not found by the court to be absolute.

In 2010, the court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that those rights extended to individual states through the 14th Amendment.

The issues of gun rights and gun control are at the forefront of public opinion this week, as the Senate starts debates over proposed gun control legislation after last year’s Sandy Hook shootings.

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The most contentious issue will be the expanded background checks proposed by a bipartisan pair of senators, Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, who helped the gun control issue make it to the Senate floor and past a threatened GOP filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says background checks will be the first amendment to the gun control bill to face a floor debate. Expect that debate to start next Tuesday, as the filibuster’s supporters will probably use 30 hours of floor time to delay the measure.

Starting the debate on Tuesday also gives senators time to speak with constituents on the weekend and travel back to Washington.

Reid has already said he expects this to be a lengthy process.

“I have promised as open an amendment process as possible on this bill,” Reid said on Thursday. “As always, the ease of that process will depend upon the good will of all senators.”

In addition to amendments on background checks, illegal gun sales, mental health programs, and educational programs—which are the primary components of the bill—a flood of other amendments are expected to be added by senators.

Democrats will add amendments on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine sales, which are expected to fail.

Politico reports that the Republicans could propose “hundreds” of amendments that would stretch out over several weeks. In particular, Republicans are expected to bring to the floor a measure involving concealed-weapon permits.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was part of the filibuster and among the bill’s strongest opponents

“This bill is a clear overreach that will predominantly punish and harass our neighbors, friends, and family,” McConnell said on Thursday.

But it will be Reid and McConnell who will have to agree to end the debate at some point, and bring the final version of the gun bill up for a vote.

That process will also be tempered by the fact that the GOP-controlled House will need to approve the bill for it to become a law.

Expect Toomey, a conservative senator from Pennsylvania, and a group of Republicans who voted against the filibuster to be center stage next week, as the background check amendment is debated.

“The bottom line for me is this: If expanding background checks to include gun shows and Internet sales can reduce the likelihood of criminals and mentally ill people from getting guns and we can do it in a fashion that does not infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, then we should do it, and in this amendment I think we do,” Toomey said on Wednesday.

The National Rifle Association opposes the Manchin-Toomey compromise in no uncertain terms.

Also under pressure will be the 16 Republicans who opposed the filibuster, a group that includes John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsey Graham.

In addition, expect a wave of publicity and lobbying from the NRA, conservative groups, an anti-gun group led by Michael Bloomberg, another group representing victims and survivors of the Sandy Hook shootings, and of course, President Barack Obama.

Once the Senate moves past the background check debate, others amendments will be introduced and discussed on the floor. Measures on mental health outreach and expanded education efforts are expected to have the best chance to pass.

Another amendment to expand penalties for illegal gun purchases was supported by the NRA on Wednesday, in a deal brokered by Senators Patrick Leahy and Susan Collins.

The other unknown proposed amendments will present a procedural challenge to the Senate leadership.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Paul Kane wrote on Wednesday about one scenario, where enough Democrats from southern and western states could vote on NRA-approved amendments to allow them to pass with 51 votes in the Senate.

Another could involve senators trying to maintain a “talking filibuster” at some point if time limits aren’t put in place for procedures on the floor.

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