The Supreme Court struck down a New York law that placed strict limits on carrying guns in public, settling off a scramble across the nation for states that have similar restrictions.
The controversial decision is expected to set off a wave of lawsuits seeking to further loosen other existing state and federal restrictions.
The conservative court said that Americans have a broad right to arm themselves in public. The 6-3 decision again showed the power of the six conservative justices, completely stacking the court in favor of conservative ideologies.
The ruling comes after devastating mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, as well as in Uvalde, Texas.
It ironically was handed down on the same day that the Senate passed gun control legislation, marking Congress’s most significant action on gun legislation in nearly three decades. The law will enhance background checks for prospective gun buyers aged 18 to 21, and provide incentives for states to enact red-flag laws and tighten a federal ban on domestic abusers buyers firearms.
Moments after the Supreme Court eliminated New York’s gun law, N.Y. Governor Kathy Hochul vowed to reconvene the Legislature as early as July in order to enact new measures that can let the state maintain existing regulations.
Hochul said “We’re already dealing with a major gun violence crisis.”
“We don’t need to add more fuel to this fire,” she said.
In Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, they focused on the deadly toll of gun violence.
In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms. Since the beginning of 2022 alone, there were 277 reported mass shootings, making the average of more than one mass shooting a day. Gun violence now kills more children and young people than car crashes.
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