Supreme Court announced Thursday that Americans can carry guns in public to defend themselves. The ruling will likely lead to increased legal gun ownership in cities.
Nearly 25% of Americans live in areas that are likely to be affected. The ruling overturned a New York gun legislation. The high court’s first major gun decision in more than a decade came on a 6-3 split with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.
Just a block away, Congress was moving to passage its own gun legislation after the massacres in Texas and New York. Although it was modest in scope, the measure is still one of the most important in recent decades.
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In a statement, President Joe Biden stated that he is “deeply disappointed”His Supreme Court decision, which he stated “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”
He encouraged states to adopt new laws, and stated that “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”
The court’s decision struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry one in public. Justices ruled that this requirement is in violation of the Second Amendment. “keep and bear arms.”
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the Constitution’s protections for the majority “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”It is not an absolute right. “second-class right,”Thomas wrote. “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need.”
Democrat-controlled California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island all have laws similar to New York’s.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is a Democrat. The ruling came at a difficult time for New York, which still remembers 10 victims from a shooting attack at a Buffalo grocery store. “This decision isn’t just reckless. It’s reprehensible. It’s not what New Yorkers want,”She said.
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Tom King, the president of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association said that he felt relieved.
“The lawful and legal gun owner of New York State is no longer going to be persecuted by laws that have nothing to do with the safety of the people and will do nothing to make the people safer,”He said. “And maybe now we’ll start going after criminals and perpetrators of these heinous acts.”
The court’s decision could be somewhat out of step with public opinion. According to AP VoteCast (an extensive survey of electorate), half of 2020 voters believed gun laws should be more stringent. A third more voters believed laws should remain the same, with only 1 in 10 saying gun laws should become less stringent.
VoteCast found that 8/10 Democratic voters believe gun laws need to be more stringent. About half of Republican voters said that laws should remain the same, with half saying they should be made more strict. The rest were evenly divided on whether to make them less restrictive.
Justice Stephen Breyer spoke out about gun violence in a court dissent with his liberal counterparts. “Since the start of this year alone (2022), there have already been 277 reported mass shootings—an average of more than one per day,“ Breyer wrote.
Backers of New York’s law had argued that striking it down would lead to more guns on the streets and higher rates of violent crime. Gun violence has risen again after the coronavirus epidemic, when it was already at its highest.
Gun owners can legally carry their guns in most parts of the nation. This was difficult to achieve in New York, and other states that have similar laws. New York’s law, which has been in place since 1913, says that to carry a concealed handgun in public, a person applying for a license has to show “proper cause,”You have a particular reason for carrying the gun.
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There are two types of licenses: unrestricted, which allows a person to take their gun with them anywhere; and restricted licenses. These licenses only allow the person to have their weapon for a specific purpose such as hunting or target shooting.
The challenge to the New York law was brought by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, which describes itself as the nation’s oldest firearms advocacy organization, and two men seeking an unrestricted ability to carry guns outside their homes.
In 2010, the Supreme Court issued its last major gun decision. The justices made a national right to have a firearm at home in self-defense. For the court, this was about the outside carrying of a firearm. Thomas stated that: “Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms.”
This article was contributed by the Associated Press
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