The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Major decision on gun rights
The US Supreme Court has struck down a New York firearms law in a major ruling on gun rights. The justices’ 6-3 decision is expected to allow more people to legally carry guns on the streets of the nation’s largest cities – including New York, Los Angeles and Boston – and elsewhere.
About a quarter of the US population live in states expected to be affected by the ruling, the high court’s first major gun decision in more than a decade.
The ruling comes as Congress is working on gun legislation following recent mass shootings in Texas, New York and California.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for selfdefence outside the home”.
In their decision, the justices struck down a New
York state law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a licence to carry one in public.
The justices said the requirement violates the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms”.
California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have similar laws likely to be challenged as a result of the ruling.
President Joe Biden said he was “deeply disappointed” by the court’s decision.
In a statement, the president said the ruling “contradicts both common sense and the constitution, and should deeply trouble us all”.
He added that after mass shootings across the US, the country should be doing more, not less, to rein in firearm availability.
He urged states to “enact and enforce common-sense laws to make their citizens and communities safer from gun violence”.
“I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line,” he added.
Backers of New York’s law argued that striking it down would ultimately lead to more guns on the streets and higher rates of violent crime.
The decision comes at a time when gun violence, already on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic, has spiked again.
In most of the country gun owners have little difficulty legally carrying their weapons in public.
But that had been harder to do in New York and the handful of states with similar laws.
New York’s law says that to carry a concealed
handgun in public, a person applying for a licence has to show “proper cause” – a specific need to carry the weapon.
The state issues unrestricted licences where a person can carry their
gun anywhere and restricted licences that allow a person to carry the weapon but just for specific purposes such as hunting and target shooting or to and from their place of business.
The Supreme Court last issued a major gun decision in 2010. In that decision and a ruling from 2008 the justices established a nationwide right to keep a gun at home for self-defence.