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The US Supreme Court has ruled against a New York state law that prohibits carrying firearms in public, holding that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry them. It is a decision that will prevent states from restricting people from doing so with their own regulations. President Joe Biden said he was “deeply disappointed.”
In a major expansion of gun rights, the conservative-majority Supreme Court of the United States ruled Thursday, June 23, that its citizens have a fundamental right to carry firearms in public in self-defense, in a landmark decision that It will prevent states from restricting people from doing so with their own regulations.
The ruling marks the overturning of a New York state law that prohibits carrying weapons in public. The ruling could have implications for seven other states with similar laws: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
The law that the Supreme Court annulled this Thursday had been in force since 1911 in the state of New York and forced those who carry weapons in public to have a license or demonstrate that they needed to do so to defend themselves.
The decision follows recent mass shootings across the country and is expected to see more people legally carry guns on the streets of America’s largest cities.
🇺🇸 “Terrible, absolutely terrible”, reacts the governor of the state of New York, Kathy Hochul, describing the US Supreme Court ruling that guarantees the carrying of firearms in public as a “black day” #AFP pic.twitter.com/1u75CDbSEd
— Agence France-Presse (@AFPespanol) June 23, 2022
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, considered “outrageous” and “reckless” the Supreme Court ruling that had the vote in favor of the six conservative judges of the court and against the three progressives. For their part, the magistrates said that the court’s decision “can have lethal consequences.”
Biden says he is “deeply disappointed”
US President Joe Biden said he was “deeply disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s ruling expanding the right to bear arms in public by overturning a New York state law.
“This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution and should deeply upset us all,” Biden said in a statement.
“I ask Americans across the country to make their voices heard on the issue of gun safety. Lives depend on it,” he concluded.
Other reactions against the Court ruling
US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a former Connecticut Attorney General and a key player in negotiations on bipartisan gun violence legislation, called this ruling “deeply destructive” in a tweet and predicted it will “unleash even more gun violence in communities Americans.”
Blumenthal said the ruling will put more guns in public spaces instead of “upholding common-sense safeguards to reduce gun violence … it will open the floodgates to invalidate sensible gun safety laws in more states.”
This deeply destructive decision will unleash even more gun violence on American communities. Instead of upholding commonsense safeguards to reduce gun violence, it’ll only put more guns in public spaces&open the floodgates to invalidate sensitive gun safety laws in more states.1/ https://t.co/MrzYvObbl7
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) June 23, 2022
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also criticized the court’s decision, stating that the ruling puts New Yorkers “at greater risk of gun violence.” Adams added that the city has and will continue efforts to mitigate the risks of gun violence in the city.
“We will work together to mitigate the risks this decision will create once implemented, as we cannot allow New York to become the Wild West,” the statement said.
This decision came as no surprise to Rhode Island Democratic State Representative Robert Craven, who said “a stricter interpretation is being taken that the Second Amendment is absolute, it says what it says, you have the right to bear arms.”
Craven questioned whether the Court will now use that same line of thinking for cases like the ban on military-style weapons.
Judgment in full debate on possession of weapons
The ruling comes amid the national debate over gun ownership and as Congress works to pass gun legislation after recent mass shootings in Texas, New York and California.
For US Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a firearm for self-defense outside the home,” stating how the new New York State law violates one of these laws (the Second and Fourteenth Amendment), pretending to pass over the same national Justice.
With AP, EFE and AFP
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