NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

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NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:09 am

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/in-6-3-ruling-court-strikes-down-new-yorks-concealed-carry-law/
NEWS
In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-carry law

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York handgun-licensing law that required New Yorkers who want to carry a handgun in public to show a special need to defend themselves.

The 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, is the court’s first significant decision on gun rights in over a decade.

[...]

Check back soon for in-depth analysis of the opinion.


Time to read the opinion...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:22 am

In Heller and McDonald, we held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. In doing so, we held unconstitutional two laws that prohibited the possession and use of handguns in the home. In the years since, the Courts of Appeals have coalesced around a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny.

Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amend­ment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Consti­tution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is con­sistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm reg­ulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U. S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).


As the foregoing shows, Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. Whether it came to defining the character of the right (individual or militia dependent), suggesting the outer limits of the right, or assessing the constitutionality of a particular regulation, Heller relied on text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.

Moreover, Heller and McDonald expressly rejected the application of any “judge-empowering ‘interest-balancing inquiry’ that ‘asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important govern­mental interests.’ ” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634 (quoting id., at 689–690 (BREYER, J., dissenting)); see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 790–791 (plurality opinion) (the Second Amend­ment does not permit—let alone require—“judges to assess the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions” under means-end scrutiny). We declined to engage in means-end scrutiny because “[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634. We then concluded: “A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its use­fulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.” Ibid.


If the last decade of Second Amendment litigation has taught this Court anything, it is that federal courts tasked with making such difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of “intermediate scru­tiny” often defer to the determinations of legislatures. But while that judicial deference to legislative interest balanc­ing is understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Sec­ond Amendment “is the very product of an interest balanc­ing by the people” and it “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. It is this balance—struck by the traditions of the American peo-ple—that demands our unqualified deference.
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:32 am

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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby Lumpy on Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:56 am

Does the decision officially strike down "May Issue" in general?
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:18 am

Lumpy wrote:Does the decision officially strike down "May Issue" in general?

Everybody is busy reading it.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/23/supreme-court-strikes-down-new-yorks-proper-cause-requirement-concealed-carry/
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby Lumpy on Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:40 pm

New York City is already planning to define "sensitive areas" so broadly as to encompass almost the entire metro area.

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams planned to schedule a vote asking state lawmakers to ban people from carrying handguns in any place containing more than 10,000 people per square mile, or anywhere within 1,000 feet of mass transit systems, hospitals, parks, government buildings, schools, churches, cemeteries, banks, theaters bars, libraries, homeless shelters and courts — effectively the whole metropolis.


Expect years of foot dragging, and restrictions being passed, appealed and struck down, like after Heller ruled against Washington D.C.
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby Bitter Bastard on Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:42 pm

Still plenty of BS in the ruling:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-s ... uxbndlbing
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a concurring opinion said states can still impose requirements on people seeking licenses to carry firearms including fingerprinting, background checks, mental health checks and firearms training classes.


We're going to see liberal abuse of carry laws for another decade at least while those requirements are pushed to the limits and litigated.


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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby Holland&Holland on Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:23 pm

Expect there will be renewed calls from the socialists to alter the court because "Orange Man bad" caused it to become "activist". Funny how THAT becomes their mantra.
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:33 pm

https://reason.com/2022/06/23/the-second-amendment-is-not-unlimited-brett-kavanaugh-stresses-in-scotus-gun-case
'The Second Amendment Is Not Unlimited,' Brett Kavanaugh Stresses in SCOTUS Gun Case
“Properly interpreted, the Second Amendment allows a ‘variety’ of gun regulations,” Kavanaugh writes, invoking Antonin Scalia
Kavanaugh agreed with Thomas about that. But Kavanaugh also wrote separately, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, "to underscore two important points about the limits of the Court's decision."

First, Kavanaugh stressed, the constitutional problem with New York's licensing scheme for carrying handguns in public was that "it grants open-ended discretion to licensing officials and authorizes licenses only for those applicants who can show some special need apart from self-defense." By contrast, "43 States employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes. Those shall-issue regimes may require a license applicant to undergo fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements." Today's decision by the Court, Kavanaugh emphasized, did not touch any of that in any of those 43 states. "Shall-issue licensing regimes are constitutionally permissible, subject of course to an as-applied challenge if a shall-issue licensing regime does not operate in that manner in practice."

Kavanaugh's second point was drawn straight from the Heller language that I quoted above. "Properly interpreted," Kavanaugh wrote, invoking Scalia, "the Second Amendment allows a 'variety' of gun regulations."
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Re: NEWS In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-

Postby jdege on Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:39 pm

Really like Alito's concurrence:

That is all we decide. Our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun. Nor does it decide anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess. Nor have we disturbed anything that we said in Heller or McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010), about re­strictions that may be imposed on the possession or carry­ing of guns.

In light of what we have actually held, it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post, at 1–8 (opinion of BREYER, J.). Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Post, at 4–5. Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atroc­ities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.

What is the relevance of statistics about the use of guns to commit suicide? See post, at 5–6. Does the dissent think that a lot of people who possess guns in their homes will be stopped or deterred from shooting themselves if they cannot lawfully take them outside?

[...]

Like that dissent in Heller, the real thrust of today’s dis­sent is that guns are bad and that States and local jurisdic­tions should be free to restrict them essentially as they see fit. That argument was rejected in Heller, and while the dissent protests that it is not rearguing Heller, it proceeds to do just that. See post, at 25–28.

Heller correctly recognized that the Second Amendment codifies the right of ordinary law-abiding Americans to pro­tect themselves from lethal violence by possessing and, if necessary, using a gun. In 1791, when the Second Amend­ment was adopted, there were no police departments, and many families lived alone on isolated farms or on the fron­tiers. If these people were attacked, they were on their own. It is hard to imagine the furor that would have erupted if the Federal Government and the States had tried to take away the guns that these people needed for protection.

Today, unfortunately, many Americans have good reason to fear that they will be victimized if they are unable to pro­tect themselves. And today, no less than in 1791, the Sec­ond Amendment guarantees their right to do so.


TLDR:

Like that dissent in Heller, the real thrust of today’s dis­sent is that guns are bad and that States and local jurisdic­tions should be free to restrict them essentially as they see fit.
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