Thursday, June 23, 2022

The Second Amendment is still a thing!

 Another big U.S. Supreme Court decision (again, not *that* decision) was announced Thursday. 


Liberal states cannot require Americans to show “some special need” to exercise their constitutional right to carry guns in public for their own protection, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday morning. Instead, the court ruled, the Constitution recognizes each citizen’s right to self-defense in public places.

The 6-3 ruling struck down a New York state gun regulation that forced citizens to prove they had a “proper cause” before obtaining a concealed carry license. New Yorkers Brandon Koch and Robert Nash brought the case after the state denied their applications, even though they fulfilled all other legal stipulations, because they could not show they had a specific threat to their lives.

The 63-page ruling, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas and issued on his 74th birthday, affirms that the Constitution respects American citizens’ right to self-defense in public.

“[T]he Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,” wrote Thomas in the plurality opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right’” that requires Americans provide a justification to exercise it, he wrote. 





New York is one of nine "may issue" states, which means even if a gun permit applicant passes a background check, the local jurisdictions within the state reserve the right to deny said applicant from being approved. Seems to me such a law could potentially be rife with abuse, perhaps even discriminatory. And given that the state has such draconian gun laws with some of the highest rates of gun violence, law abiding citizens ain't the problem here. 

 

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the dissent on behalf of the court’s liberal bloc, citing numerous mass shootings.

“How does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo?” retorted (Justice Samuel) Alito. “The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.”


Here's another "mic drop" moment, this one courtesy of Justice Thomas: 





One of the prog chanting points that has been so prolific in the gun debate is that if more black people own guns, 2A advocates will start to tout gun control real quick. But today's ruling on Bruen will make it easier for all New Yorkers (including the state's black citizens) to own a firearm, yet it's proggies who are the most bothered by this decision. Huh.


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