With guns ruling, SCOTUS is handing Americans a death sentence
The Supreme Court didn’t issue a ruling on abortion Thursday, but it did something else monumental: it handed down a decision in one of the most significant gun rights cases in more than a decade.
The ruling struck down a New York law that restricted concealed carry outside the home. In order to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public, New Yorkers had to meet a “proper cause” requirement, meaning they had to demonstrate a special need for self-defense.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the majority opinion, wrote that individuals generally have a right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home, and New York’s law violates that right. The decision was 6-3, with the court’s conservative justices in favor, and the liberal justices choosing to dissent.
This broad interpretation of the Second Amendment saddles the government with the burden of proving that any regulation of firearms is “part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms,” according to the ruling. It’s almost certain to result in a loosening of gun laws nationwide, particularly as it opens a door for more restrictions to be challenged in court.
It’s worth noting that the law struck down by the court is not new. It took effect in 1911 — over a century ago. A handful of states, including California, Massachusetts and New Jersey, have similar laws; roughly a quarter of Americans live in states likely to be affected by this decision.
The decision comes a little more than a month after a racist massacre killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York on May 14. There have been more than 80 mass shootings in the U.S. since then. What we need are laws that make our country safer — something that has finally begun to pick up some bipartisan support in Congress. This decision will only put more guns on the streets, and make it harder for states to enact the gun safety measures we truly need.
In their dissent, the court’s liberal justices correctly argue that it is necessary for the court to consider gun violence when considering Second Amendment issues. In response, Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s most conservative members, noted that the law in question “obviously did not stop [the] perpetrator” in Buffalo.
But if gun laws don’t prevent mass shootings, then why does every developed country in the world with stricter gun laws than ours also have significantly fewer mass shootings?
The Supreme Court has historically been the most trusted branch of government. But public confidence in the court has hit a new low in recent years, and it’s not hard to see why. These are the people tasked with making monumental decisions about which rights belong to us and which do not, about who the Constitution protects and who it does not. And yet many of the court’s decisions, including the highly anticipated opinion expected to overturn Roe v. Wade, are out of touch with what the majority of Americans believe. They often also represent a departure from decades, even centuries, of the court’s own precedent.
There’s a twisted irony in watching a court with a supposedly pro-life majority hand down a ruling that will almost certainly lead to death. This ruling doesn’t guarantee our freedom — it only jeopardizes our safety.
This story was originally published June 23, 2022 at 3:07 PM.
