Supreme Court Strikes Down Restrictive New York Gun Law

WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York state law that had restricted who could obtain a permit to carry a gun in public. Under the law in place since 1913, New York residents needed to show proper cause, or an actual need, to carry a concealed handgun in public for self-defense.

The justices said that law conflicts with the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

New York and a half a dozen other states with similar laws now must decide their next steps. As with New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have legislatures controlled by Democrats who could propose measures to ensure that guns will not be allowed in certain places.

Local leaders in the Philadelphia area reacted to the news on social media. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted in part: "Based on a deeply flawed constitutional methodology, a right-wing majority on the United States Supreme Court has just said that states can no longer decide for ourselves how best to limit the proliferation of firearms in the public sphere."

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney tweeted that the ruling is a "major step backward."

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons also released a statement on the ruling.

"On a day when the U.S. Senate is about to pass historic, bipartisan gun safety legislation that will save lives, the current Supreme Court has issued a decision that will likely put more lives at risk," Coons wrote in a statement. "Today's decision is the product of a generations-long right-wing effort to alter the Court. Today's court is led by conservative judicial activists who twist Constitutional analysis to substitute their own policy preferences for laws passed by Congress or the states.

"I am grateful that Democrats and Republicans are standing together to send a message that reasonable laws to prevent gun violence don't threaten constitutional rights—they save lives. We must pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as soon as we can."

The ruling comes as Congress is working toward passage of gun legislation following mass shootings in Texas, New York and California. On Thursday, senators were expected to clear the way for that measure, modest in scope but still the most far-reaching in decades.

President Joe Biden said in a statement he was "deeply disappointed" by the Supreme Court ruling, which he said "contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all."

He urged states to pass new laws and said, "I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line."

In the opinion itself, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the Constitution protects "an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home."

The 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. The justices said that requirement violates the Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."

California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have similar laws. The Biden administration had urged the justices to uphold New York's law.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the ruling comes at a particularly painful time, when New York is still mourning the deaths of 10 people in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo. "This decision isn't just reckless. It's reprehensible. It's not what New Yorkers want," she said.

But Tom King, president of the plaintiff New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said he was 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 the perpetrator of these heinous acts."

In a court dissent joined by his liberal colleagues, Justice Stephen Breyer focused on the toll taken by gun violence. "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, which was already on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic has spiked anew.

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, 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," a specific need to carry the weapon.

The state issues unrestricted licenses where a person can carry their gun anywhere and restricted licenses 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-defense. The question for the court this time was about carrying one outside the home.

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.

The court's decision is somewhat out of step with public opinion. About half of voters in the 2020 presidential election said gun laws in the U.S. should be made more strict, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate. An additional third said laws should be kept as they are, while only about 1 in 10 said gun laws should be less strict.

About 8 in 10 Democratic voters said gun laws should be made more strict, VoteCast showed. Among Republican voters, roughly half said laws should be kept as they are, while the remaining half closely divided between more and less strict.

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Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut and Zeke Miller in Washington and Michael King in East Greenbush, New York, contributed to this report.

(© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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