For defenders of Second Amendment rights and concealed carry, the 6-3 ruling announced Thursday morning is as a significant victory. The ruling comes after the landmark Heller decision in 2010, which came from a lawsuit in crime-ridden Washington, D.C. and held American citizens have the individual right to own a firearm in their home.
In this new ruling, which came from a 2020 lawsuit filed by gun club, Justice Clarence Thomas stated quite plainly the Second Amendment protects "an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home." The gun club members were required by state law to get that permit to transport firearms to their gun range but the justices said that “proper cause” demand, currently required in only a few other states, violates the Second Amendment and is therefore unconstitutional.
In the case of New York, Thomas scorched the state government for demanding a “special need” standard that demands New Yorkers describe “particular threats” to their safety. Even living in a high-crime neighborhood did not meet that standard.
“This has been so nonsensical on the part of local government here in New York [City],” Fox News co-host Kennedy explained Thursday morning, “because you can never meet the threshold for personal danger in order to defend yourself.”
Mike Hammond, legislative counsel at Gun Owners of America, tells AFN the high court has definitely built upon its Second Amendment-protecting Heller ruling.
"It says to me that the constitutional right to have a gun in your home, which the Heller case held,” he observes, “also applies for the constitutional right to defend yourself in a variety of other circumstances, including the streets."
The ruling was predictably vilified by the Far Left, led by New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams. At a press conference, the first-term mayor said “nothing changes today” despite the ruling. The state’s current permit application process will be reviewed, he said, but only those who are “fully qualified” can obtain one.
Adams, a former NYPD captain, was elected in June 2021 after vowing to oversee rampant crime in the historic city and ignore the defund-the-police hysteria from the Far Left. Even in liberal New York City, voters said cracking down on crime was their most important issue this time last year.
Yet the tough-on-crime Mayor predicted Thursday the city will become the “Wild West” if the permitting process is loosened for more concealed carry gun owners. That claim is a frequent fantasy from gun-hating Democrats, who describe gun-toting Americans as reckless, dangerous, gun-loving cowboys.
At about the same time Adams was vowing to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, Hammond was telling AFN he expects New York’s liberal politicians to water down the permitting process with rules and stipulations.
“And it will make that list very long and very broad,” he says, “and we will be fighting the issue for the next decade."
In the state's capital city, Gov. Kathy Hochul called the ruling "reckless." In a speech, she warned ominously the term "concealed weapon" means people have the right to hide a weapon when they shop at the grocery store or use the subway, as if the pubic doesn't know.
"I'm sorry," she said, "this dark day has come."
On social media, the reaction from crazed Democrats ranged from pleas for New York politicians to ignore the ruling to the now-frequent vow that Democrats will eventually add seats to the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court to "save democracy."
