What was the vote count?
The court holds that New York’s “proper-cause” requirement to obtain a concealed-carry license violates the Constitution 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.
Huge win!!
The way I read the ruling, it sounds like it goes much farther than just the New York rule. It says individuals have a constitutional right to self defense with a gun outside the home. That would seem to me to strike down pretty much every restriction or licensing scheme for concealed carry nationwide.
Supreme Court says Second Amendment guarantees right to carry guns in public
The ruling expands upon a 2008 decision that said the Second Amendment safeguards a person’s right to possess firearms at home for self-protection.
6-3 ruling. I am shocked Roberts went with the right, but then he already had cover since it would have been 5-4. This is Roberts’s MO. He goes far left when he is the 5-4 swing vote, but when the conservatives have a 5-4 without him, then he votes with them 6-3 to give himself cover and pretend to be conservative.
Scumbag.
The major decision of the day. The Roe overturn will have to wait till next week.
Big Win!
Amen. Now waiting for Dobbs.
It sounds like they just eliminated the need for a CCW permit for the 25 states that still required them
I’m reasonably certain there’s no connection, but the left may not have chosen the opportune moment to harass the justices at their homes.
My concern is SCOTUS rules one way on each issue, so this could be setting up for disappointment on Roe... to placate everyone.
Outstanding!
It will be interesting to see what Rat Party hacks in New York,Kalifornia,Massachusetts,etc will do to circumvent this. Maybe a $200 tax on each round of ammunition sold in their state. Or,perhaps,a $200 per round *Federal* tax.
We know that the Rats won't let this stand.
Welcome to nationwide “Shall Issue” concealed carry!
In light of what we have actually held, it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post, at 1–8 (opinion of BREYER, J.). Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Post, at 4–5. Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator. What is the relevance of statistics about the use of guns to commit suicide? See post, at 5–6. Does the dissent think that a lot of people who possess guns in their homes will be stopped or deterred from shooting themselves if they cannot lawfully take them outside? The dissent cites statistics about the use of guns in domestic disputes, see post, at 5, but it does not explain why these statistics are relevant to the question presented in this case. How many of the cases involving the use of a gun in a domestic dispute occur outside the home, and how many are prevented by laws like New York’s? The dissent cites statistics on children and adolescents killed by guns, see post, at 1, 4, but what does this have to do with the question whether an adult who is licensed to possess a handgun may be prohibited from carrying it outside the home? Our decision, as noted, does not expand the categories of people who may lawfully possess a gun, and federal law generally forbids the possession of a handgun by a person who is under the age of 18, 18 U. S. C. §§922(x)(2)–(5), and bars the sale of a handgun to anyone under the age of 21, §§922(b)(1), (c)(1).1 The dissent cites the large number of guns in private hands—nearly 400 million—but it does not explain what this statistic has to do with the question whether a person who already has the right to keep a gun in the home for self-
—————— 1The dissent makes no effort to explain the relevance of most of the incidents and statistics cited in its introductory section (post, at 1–8) (opinion of BREYER, J.). Instead, it points to studies (summarized later in its opinion) regarding the effects of “shall issue” licensing regimes on rates of homicide and other violent crimes. I note only that the dissent’s presentation of such studies is one-sided. See RAND Corporation, Effects of Concealed-Carry Laws on Violent Crime (Apr. 22, 2022), https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/concealedcarry/violent-crime-html; see also Brief for William English et al. as Amici Curiae 3 (“The overwhelming weight of statistical analysis on the effects of [right-to-carry] laws on violent crime concludes that RTC laws do not result in any statistically significant increase in violent crime rates”); Brief for Arizona et al. as Amici Curiae 12 (“[P]opulation-level data on licensed carry is extensive, and the weight of the evidence confirms that objective, non-discriminatory licensed-carry laws have two results: (1) statistically significant reductions in some types of violent crime, or (2) no statistically significant effect on overall violent crime”); Brief for Law Enforcement Groups et al. as Amici Curiae 12 (“[O]ver the period 1991–2019 the inventory of firearms more than doubled; the number of concealed carry permits increased by at least sevenfold,” but “murder rates fell by almost half, from 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991 to 5.0 per 100,000 in 2019” and “[v]iolent crimes plummeted by over half ”).
defense is likely to be deterred from acquiring a gun by the knowledge that the gun cannot be carried outside the home. See post, at 3. And while the dissent seemingly thinks that the ubiquity of guns and our country’s high level of gun violence provide reasons for sustaining the New York law, the dissent appears not to understand that it is these very facts that cause law-abiding citizens to feel the need to carry a gun for self-defense. No one apparently knows how many of the 400 million privately held guns are in the hands of criminals, but there can be little doubt that many muggers and rapists are armed and are undeterred by the Sullivan Law. Each year, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) confiscates thousands of guns,2 and it is fair to assume that the number of guns seized is a fraction of the total number held unlawfully. The police cannot disarm every person who acquires a gun for use in criminal activity; nor can they provide bodyguard protection for the State’s nearly 20 million residents or the 8.8 million people who live in New York City. Some of these people live in high-crime neighborhoods. Some must traverse dark and dangerous streets in order to reach their homes after work or other evening activities. Some are members of groups whose members feel especially vulnerable. And some of these people reasonably believe that unless they can brandish or, if necessary, use a handgun in the case of attack, they may be murdered, raped, or suffer some other serious injury. Ordinary citizens frequently use firearms to protect
—————— 2NYPD statistics show approximately 6,000 illegal guns were seized in 2021. A. Southall, This Police Captain’s Plan To Stop Gun Violence Uses More Than Handcuffs, N. Y. Times, Feb. 4, 2022. According to recent remarks by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the NYPD has confiscated 3,000 firearms in 2022 so far. City of New York, Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Makes Announcement About NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division (June 6, 2022), https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-themayor/news/369-22/trascript-mayor-eric-adams-makes-announcementnypd-gun-violence-suppression-division. Cite as: 597 U. S. ____
themselves from criminal attack. According to survey data, defensive firearm use occurs up to 2.5 million times per year. Brief for Law Enforcement Groups et al. as Amici Curiae 5. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report commissioned by former President Barack Obama reviewed the literature surrounding firearms use and noted that “[s]tudies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns . . . have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.” Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, Priorities for Research To Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence 15–16 (2013) (referenced in Brief for Independent Women’s Law Center as Amicus Curiae 19–20). Many of the amicus briefs filed in this case tell the story
I’ve been a fan since I was in high school seeing him getting harassed by Biden, Kennedy, and Howell Heflin.
A win for DJT, his nominees held together. All in all a big victory for conservatives.
The governor of NY said the government has rights and that this outrageous decision will be fought. Amazingly dumb.
I wonder if it makes the idiotic Federal gun regulation legislation currently working its way through Congress unconstitutional.