Supreme Court to hear case on New York’s firearm permitting law – Telemundo New York (47)

NEW YORK – The Supreme Court is preparing to hear a firearm rights case that could lead to allowing more firearms to be loaded on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. In addition, it would threaten restrictions on carrying firearms in the subway, airports, bars, churches, schools and other places where people gather.

The case judges will hear on Wednesday comes as gun violence has increased and could dramatically increase the number of people who qualify to carry them.

The case centers on New York’s restrictive firearm permitting law and whether defendants have the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

Firearms watchdog groups say that if a higher court ruling requires states to lift the restrictions, the result will be more violence. Meanwhile, gun rights groups say the risk of a confrontation is precisely why they have the right to be armed to act in self-defense.

Gun rights advocates hope the court, with a conservative 6-3 majority, is about to side with them. They want the court to say that New York law is too restrictive, as are similar laws in other states. Advocates for firearms control acknowledge that the composition of the court worries them about the outcome.

“The stakes really couldn’t be higher,” said Jonathan Lowy, lead attorney for gun control group Brady.

The court last issued major decisions on firearm rights in 2008 and 2010. Those decisions established a national right to have a gun in the home for self-defense. The question for the court now is whether there is a similar Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in public.

The question is not a problem in most parts of the country, where gun owners have little difficulty in legally carrying them when they go out. But about half a dozen states, including the states of California and several eastern states, restrict the carrying of guns to those who can demonstrate a particular need to do so. The judges could decide if those laws, “may issue” laws, can be upheld.

The fact that the higher court is hearing a firearm rights case is a change after years of routinely rejecting them. A weapons case that magistrates agreed to hear ended anticlimately in 2020 when magistrates dismissed the case.

But after the death of Liberal Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year and her replacement by Conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the court agreed to get back into the gun debate.

Eric Tirschwell, the legal director of Everytown for Gun Safetand, he said there are “reasons to be concerned” by groups such as that “a type of law that the court was not interested or willing to review in the past, now it is.”

The New York law the court is reviewing has been in effect since 1913 and says that in order to carry a concealed firearm in public for self-defense, a person applying for a license must show “good cause,” a real need for carry the weapon. When local officials issue a firearms license, it is unrestricted, allowing the person to carry a gun anywhere that is not prohibited by law, or restricted, allowing the person to carry a gun in certain circumstances. That could include carrying a weapon to hunt or shoot the target, when traveling for work, or when in rural areas.

The New York State Pistol and Rifle Association and two private citizens who defy the law have told the Supreme Court that it “makes it effectively impossible for a common and law-abiding citizen to obtain a license to carry a firearm. fire in self-defense. “

The group’s attorneys say the text of the Second Amendment, along with history and tradition, supports their argument that there is a right to carry a gun outside the home. The group also says that the New York law has discriminatory origins, which was originally intended to give officials wide latitude to keep guns out of reach of newly arrived immigrants from Europe, particularly Italians.

New York, for its part, denies that and says the Second Amendment allows states to restrict the carrying of guns in public. It also points to the history, tradition, and text of the Second Amendment. The state says its restrictions promote public safety, and points to research that says places that restrict the public carrying of guns have lower rates of gun-related homicides and other violent crimes. New York says its law is not an absolute ban on carrying firearms, but a more moderate restriction.

Tom King, president of the New York State Guns and Rifles Association, said in an interview that part of the problem with New York law is that a person’s chances of getting an unrestricted permit depend on whether they are in a rural area or a more urban area of ​​the state.

Both firearm rights and firearm control advocates say it is unclear to what extent the court might be willing to rule and that they will be watching the arguments closely for clues, particularly from the three newer members of the court.

The three judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett, are conservatives but were not in court when the justices last issued major rulings on firearm rights. However, his actions so far have given gun rights advocates reason to be hopeful.

In 2011, as an appeals court judge, Kavanaugh argued in a dissent that the District of Columbia’s ban on semi-automatic rifles and its gun registration requirement were unconstitutional. Last year, he urged the court to take another weapons case soon and said he was concerned that the lower courts were not following Supreme Court precedent.

Gorsuch, for his part, would have decided on the 2020 firearms case that his colleagues discarded. And Barrett, as an appellate court judge, wrote in dissent that a conviction for a non-violent crime should not automatically disqualify someone from possessing a weapon; he said his colleagues were treating the Second Amendment as a “second-class right.”

However, gun control groups hope that conservatives will continue to vote to uphold New York’s law. A group of prominent conservatives, including former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig, have urged the court to do so in a brief to the court. And earlier this year, in a 7-4 decision, judges for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a challenge to Hawaii’s permitting regulations. Conservative Judge Jay Bybee wrote that a “review of more than 700 years of English and American legal history reveals a strong theme: Government has the power to regulate guns in the public square.”

The court’s three liberal justices are expected to side with New York.

Depending on what the judges ultimately say, the laws of other states could be affected as well. The Biden administration, which is urging judges to uphold New York law, says California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have similar laws. Connecticut and Delaware also have “can cast” laws, although they are somewhat different.

– .