Supreme Court Ruling Supports the Constitution’s Second Amendment
Cris Alarcon, News@InEDC.com [Statement from EDSO included]
NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) – After their state restrictions on carrying concealed handguns were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, top officials in New York and California said they were working to limit what they see as damage to their efforts to reduce gun violence.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who called the ruling “very disturbing,” said her state had been prepared for it and will pursue conforming gun-licensing policies, including measures defining “sensitive places” where guns would be barred.
Democratic leaders in California, the most populous state, had readied legislation in anticipation of the decision and said they would now rush through the most restrictive rules allowed under the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Gun rights enshrined in the constitution are embraced by many Americans, with Republicans more likely than Democrats to criticize attempts to limit ownership as undermining citizens’ ability to protect themselves.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, predicted that more disputes would boil over into violence once it becomes easier to carry a gun around the city of more than 8 million people, the country’s most populous.
“This decision has made every single one of us less safe from gun violence,” Adams said at a news conference. “The decision ignores the shocking crisis of gun violence every day engulfing not only New York but engulfing our entire country.” […]
The Supreme Court for the first time ruled that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to “keep and bear Arms” and was ratified in 1791, secured an individual right to carry weapons in public for self-defense.
The court’s conservative majority ruled that New York state’s system for issuing concealed-carry permits only to people who could prove they had “proper cause” was unconstitutional.
In California, where a law had required permit-seekers to show “good cause,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said he recognized that provision was no longer constitutional.
But “the court did not disturb California’s longstanding efforts to prevent dangerous individuals from attaining these permits,” Bonta said.
He said legislation filed in anticipation of the ruling will now be edited to closely hew to the Supreme Courts’ guidance on who could be denied a concealed carry permit and where concealed weapons could be banned, such as schools, courthouses and polling places.
Californians also are proposing making “an assessment of dangerousness” part of the review of applicants for concealed carry permits.
“The assessment is going to be robust, including looking at arrests, convictions, restraining orders, and other publicly available information that might suggest that a person poses a danger to themselves or to others,” Bonta said. […]
[Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; editing by Will Dunham and Donna Bryson]
Publisher: The EDSO has always followed the Constitutional Standards so this SCOTUS ruling will not change much within EDC.