The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a century-old New York gun law.
The ruling expands Second Amendment rights, alarming gun-control advocates.
The decision was 6-3. The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that the US Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a gun outside the home for self-defence purposes, a 6-3 decision that dramatically expands Second Amendment rights.
The court struck down a century-old gun-permit law in New York that required people seeking a license to carry a gun outside their homes to demonstrate a “proper cause,” or a special reason, for doing so.
In an opinion delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s conservative majority supported the view that New York’s rule violated the Constitution.
“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need,” Thomas wrote. “That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defence.”
The court’s three liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — dissented.
“Many States have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit, in
various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts to do so,” Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion.
The move delivers a major win to gun-rights activists and a blow to gun-safety advocates, who had pushed for the court to uphold the New York statute as the US experiences an uptick in gun violence.
The landmark decision comes 14 years after the nation’s top court last significantly expanded gun rights. In that 2008 ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller, the majority decided that individuals had the right to own a gun for personal use in the home, rejecting the decades-old interpretation of the Second Amendment as a collective right to “keep and bear arms” for a “well-regulated militia.”
“The argument for the gun-rights advocates is this: The Second Amendment protects a right to keep and bear arms. Heller was about keeping arms. And this is a case about bearing them. Both those words are in the Amendment, so they both got to have some meaning,” Joseph Blocher, a professor at the Duke University School of Law who is a co-director of the school’s Center for Firearms Law, told Insider ahead of the decision.
The current case was brought by two New York men who applied for state permits to carry concealed guns in public for self-defence and were denied after they failed to meet the “proper cause” standard. Their challenge, backed by the National Rifle Association, claimed the New York law infringed on the Second Amendment. The court heard arguments for the case in November. At the time, the conservative justices appeared open to tossing out the law, which had been upheld by lower courts.
Legal experts say the ruling is likely to bring more guns into public spaces. Besides New York, at least seven other states — California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Hawaii — have similar concealed-carry licensing rules. Those states together are home to about 73 million people.
Supporters of gun rights argue that the decision will allow more people to protect themselves.
Source: Insider
