A Wednesday statement from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito shines light on how the court’s summer gun control ruling could impact states going forward.
Although Alito decided not to block portions of a New York new gun law passed after the ruling, he explained why.
“I understand the Court’s denial today to reflect respect for the Second Circuit’s procedures in managing its own docket, rather than expressing any view on the merits of the case,” said Alito. “Applicants should not be deterred by today’s order from again seeking relief if the Second Circuit does not, within a reasonable time, provide an explanation for its stay order or expedite consideration of the appeal.”
In the June 23 New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen opinion, the Supreme Court held that New York’s “proper-cause requirement” violated the Fourteenth and Second amendments. According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the law had been in place since 1913.
Just after the opinion was delivered, Alex McCourt – director of legal research at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions – said the court specifically said the Second Amendment protects the public carry of firearms “which was not the case before,” and that it “set up a new test for courts to determine whether a law violates the Second Amendment.”
McCourt said that the Supreme Court case’s history goes back to two men who were denied concealed carry permits in New York, which required applicants to provide “proper cause” for obtaining a permit.
“What happened here is that two guys applied for concealed carry permits. One said that his reasoning was that there had been a string of robberies in his neighborhood. The other said that he just wanted it for self-defense,” he explained.
When they were denied, the men appealed with help from the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association.
Per the court’s opinion, the New York law violated the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”
“So the short story is that New York's law is struck down, and other laws like New York’s, which are present in a handful of other states, are also likely to be struck down,” said McCourt this summer.
However, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul “signed legislation to strengthen New York's gun laws and bolster restrictions on concealed carry weapons,” referred to as the Concealed Carry Improvement Act in response to the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Shortly after this legislation took effect, applicants – five individuals with carry permits and a sixth individual who has never applied for a firearms license – sued to challenge nearly every provision of the CCIA as unconstitutional,” said a preliminary statement included in the Ivan Antonyuk, et al. v. Steven Nigrelli case that Alito commented on this week. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Alito in his statement.
According to POLITICO, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in December paused a lower court ruling that would have immediately blocked a section of the law that bans firearms in certain locations. It explained that “the issue for the Supreme Court was whether to leave that order in place.”
Overall, “the New York law at issue in this application presents novel and serious questions under both the First and the Second Amendments,” said the justices Wednesday.
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