Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Concealed-Carry Restriction

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that New York’s “proper-cause” requirement to obtain a concealed-carry license is unconstitutional as it violates ordinary citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

The Court voted 6–3 to strike down the New York law, which has been in place since 1913 and required that people show a special need to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun outside the home.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to carry a gun outside the home, adding that the state’s “proper cause” requirement “violates 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.”

The three liberal justices dissented.

Roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population lives in states that will likely be impacted by the ruling, the Associated Press reported. Several states have similar laws that are likely to be challenged in response to the ruling, including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, according to the AP.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, that the ruling “does not prohibit States from imposing licensing requirements for carrying a handgun for self-defense.”

“In particular the Court’s decision does not affect the existing licensing regimes — known as ‘shall-issue’ regimes — that are employed in 43 states,” he wrote, adding that states with proper-cause requirements “may continue to require licenses for carrying handguns for self-defense so long as those States employ objective licensing requirements like those used by the 43 shall-issue States.”

The decision comes after plaintiffs Robert Nash and Brandon Koch from upstate New York were denied carry permits in 2016 and 2018 because they did not “face any special or unique danger” to their lives. The pair were authorized to carry guns for target practice and hunting away from populated areas. Koch was permitted to carry a gun to and from work. 

“Nash and Koch did not receive unrestricted licenses because neither demonstrated a nonspeculative need to carry a handgun virtually anywhere in public,” Barbara D. Underwood, New York’s solicitor general, wrote in a brief.

Nash and Koch successfully argued that having to demonstrate a need for self-protection to acquire a concealed-carry permit was unconstitutional.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent accusing the majority opinion of deciding the case “without discussing the nature or severity” of gun violence.

Justice Samuel Alito dismissed Breyer’s concern in his concurring opinion.

“Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years?” Alito wrote, arguing that the New York law did not stop the 18-year-old shooter who killed ten people in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., last month.

New York governor Kathy Hochul responded to the ruling, which she called “frightful in its scope,” at a press conference on Thursday morning.

“We are not powerless to respond to this,” she said, adding that she plans to call the legislature back into session to identify “sensitive locations” where new restrictions can be imposed.

New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat, accused the Court in a statement of deciding “that guns are more important than lives in this country” in the wake of “horrific massacres in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, and the over 270 other places that have experienced a mass shooting this year alone.”

“Today’s decision reinforces the fact that states must step up to protect our citizens’ best interests and lead the way on necessary reform,” she wrote, adding that the state “will rise up to this latest challenge to pass additional gun safety legislation.”