High court gives boost to gun rights

The Bill of Rights to the Constitution applies to every person in every state.

That includes the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Which is why we commend the Supreme Court for upholding the right to “concealed carry” — carrying a gun outside the home — in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Earlier, in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the court upheld the personal right to own a gun.

In too many cases, especially in California, the right to concealed carry has been restricted by what's called “proper cause,” meaning state or local officials could determine, often arbitrarily, who is to be granted a concealedcarry permit. But in the new decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, “New York's propercause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees “the equal protection of the laws” across the United States. For example, the freedoms of speech, the press and religion exist the same way in all 50 states. One state cannot interpret the First Amendment to ban a book on religion (for or against), while another allows it.

For concealed carry, a good example is California, where concealed-carry permits are granted by county sheriffs. The policies vary widely in just the way the Supreme Court criticized. San Francisco and Los Angeles are much more strict than rural counties. Ironically, one of the most permissive counties is Sacramento, the location of the Capitol where legislators have been enacting everstricter gun laws.

Thomas' decision includes a history of gun control in America. He noted of the Second Amendment, “After the Civil War, of course, the exercise of this fundamental right by freed slaves was systematically thwarted. This Court has already recounted some of the Southern abuses violating blacks' right to keep and bear arms.”

Notably, among those challenging New York's restrictive concealed carry laws were the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, the Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, which argued that the legal consequences fell hardest on ethnic minorities. “They have deprived our clients of their jobs, children, livelihoods, and ability to live in this country. And they have branded our clients as `criminals' and `violent felons' for life. They have done all of this only because our clients exercised a constitutional right,” they wrote in a brief before the court.

Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the court's ruling as a “dangerous decision from a court hell bent on pushing a radical ideological agenda and infringing on the rights of states to protect our citizens.” But, once again, the court has affirmed that right belongs first and foremost to the people themselves — all the people, not just those favored by the politicians in power.

As Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and state legislators craft new gun legislation to comply with the new decision, they especially should make sure they avoid copying the racist gun laws the court decried.