The Latest on the Supreme Court ruling on New York's gun law:
The American Medical Association has called the ruling a “harmful and deeply disturbing decision.’’
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"Firearm violence is a public health crisis, and easier access to weapons and fewer restrictions on who can carry them — and where they can be carried — are dangerous steps in the wrong direction," Dr. Jack Resneck, the AMA’s president, said in a written statement. "Overturning decades of reasonable firearm regulations will cost more lives.’’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also called the ruling “dangerous" in a tweet, among other labels such as “shameful” and “a dark day in America.”
“This is a dangerous decision from a court hell bent on pushing a radical ideological agenda and infringing on the rights of states to protect our citizens from being gunned down in our streets, schools, and churches,” he wrote.
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MORE ON THE DECISION:
— Supreme Court expands gun rights, striking New York limits
— States with strict gun-permitting laws consider next steps
— NY leaders vow new gun limits after Supreme Court ruling
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NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader whose National Action Network is headquartered in New York City, condemned the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday as “devastating and potentially dangerous.”
“This ruling could not have come at a worse time, as we have been working to deescalate gun violence in the city,” Sharpton said. “It has never been more important for Congress to pass meaningful legislation to combat the epidemic that is gun violence in this nation.”
One big concern is the ability of people to carry guns in public spaces such as neighborhoods, streets and subways.
Paige Graves, the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s general counsel, said in a statement that “the presence of guns within a sensitive place like New York’s transit system is an unacceptable risk.”
“Considering this Supreme Court decision, we have begun drafting appropriate rules to keep dangerous weapons out of our subways, buses and commuter trains,” Graves said.
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WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday’s Supreme Court decision “defies common sense” and “defies logic.”
Harris said she was “deeply concerned and troubled by the Supreme Court’s ruling,” which follows her recent visit to Buffalo where she attended a funeral for one of the victims of the May 14 shooting that killed 10 and injured three. She also referenced the many other recent shootings.
“We can go on down the list about why it, yet again, is on the front pages, so to speak, of the concern of the American people about what we can and what we have a responsibility to do in terms of reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris said.
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NEW YORK — Several Republicans in New York cheered Thursday’s ruling.
U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican running for governor, who has supported the lawsuit, said the decision marked “a historic, proper, and necessary victory for law abiding citizens of New York, whose Second Amendment rights have been under constant attack.”
Nick Langworthy, chair of the New York state GOP and a congressional candidate, called the ruling a win for the public over politicians.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is exactly as it should be — a final authority that protects the constitutional rights of citizens against a dictatorial government,” Langworthy said.
Langworthy, Zeldin and other Republicans criticized Democrats for what they see as threatening new restrictions on gun owners rather than passing tougher crime laws.
Sen. George Borrello, a Republican from western New York, called the ruling “a validation of the Second Amendment and a victory for law-abiding gun owners in our state.”
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WASHINGTON — The two parties’ leaders in the U.S. House are offering contrasting reactions to Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.
House minority GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, welcomed the ruling, saying it “rightfully ensures the right of all law-abiding Americans to defend themselves without unnecessary government interference.”
Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also of California, issued a statement saying the ruling gutted the authority of states to keep public spaces safe from gun violence.
“It is unfathomable that, while families in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities mourn their loved ones stolen by gun violence, a supermajority of the Supreme Court has chosen to endanger more American lives,” Pelosi said in the statement.
The decision was made by a “radical, Republican-controlled Court” using “twisted logic,” Pelosi said.
She promised Democrats will continue efforts toward preventing gun violence.
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NEW YORK — New York City officials insist nothing will change immediately following Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.
They note that the high court sent the case back to a lower court for further proceedings that could iron out implementation details.
Officials in the nation’s most populous city immediately began reviewing its gun permit application process and pondering how they now might legally define “sensitive locations” where civilians wouldn’t be allow to bring guns.
“There is no place in the nation that this decision affects as much as New York City,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference. “And we are prepared to set an example that will lead the country as to: how do we fight back on this decision?”
Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, raised the specter of everyday disputes turning into shootouts in New York’s crowded streets and subways. He suggested that police officers would face greater danger, as well as a greater burden of distinguishing between legal and illegal guns in public places.
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NEW YORK — In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling Thursday, at least one advocacy group urged lawmakers to avoid passing regulations that continue to make it too hard for members of Black and brown communities to own guns.
“New York’s gun licensing regulations have been arbitrarily and discriminatorily applied, disproportionately ensnaring the people we represent, the majority of whom are from communities of color, in the criminal legal system,” the Legal Aid Society said in a statement released by the nonprofit’s spokesperson Redmond Haskins.
The group recognized the ruling as “an affirmative step toward ending arbitrary licensing standards that have inhibited lawful Black and Brown gun ownership in New York,” stating that criminalization of gun ownership by people of color “has never prevented violence and serves only to further marginalize and incarcerate people from BIPOC communities.”
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s former longtime attorney general and a key participant in the bipartisan gun violence legislation negotiations, called Thursday’s ruling “deeply destructive” in a tweet.
He predicted it “will unleash even more gun violence on American communities.”
Blumenthal said the ruling will put more guns in public spaces instead of “upholding commonsense safeguards to reduce gun violence” This, he said in the tweet, will “open the floodgates to invalidate sensible gun safety laws in more states.”
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, said his office will examine Thursday’s ruling to determine its impact on Maryland and “continue to fight to protect the safety of Marylanders.
“Today’s decision means more deaths and more pain in a country already awash in gun violence,” Frosh said in a statement.
In the statement, Frosh contends people carrying firearms in public places is a dangerous thing to have become the norm.
“The epidemic of gun violence sweeping our nation demonstrates daily the folly of introducing more guns into this boiling cauldron,” he said.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden says he’s “deeply disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling striking down New York state’s century-old restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms.
In a statement, the president said the ruling “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.” He added that after mass shootings across the U.S., the country should be doing more, not less, to rein in firearm availability.
As Congress appears set to approve modest gun law changes, Biden urged states to go further and “enact and enforce commonsense laws to make their citizens and communities safer from gun violence.”
“I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line,” he added.
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NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams released a statement Thursday criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
He stated the ruling puts New Yorkers “at further risk of gun violence.”
Adams said the city has and will continue efforts to mitigate risks of gun violence in the city, including reviews of defining license application processes and “sensitive locations” where guns are banned.
“We will work together to mitigate the risks this decision will create once it is implemented, as we cannot allow New York to become the Wild West,” the statement said.
“This decision may have opened an additional river feeding the sea of gun violence, but we will do everything we can to dam it,” he added.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island Democratic state Rep. Robert Craven said Thursday he wasn’t surprised by the ruling.
“I see the court headed in that direction,” he said. “It’s taking a stricter interpretation that the Second Amendment is absolute — it says what it says, you have a right to bear arms.”
Craven, an attorney and chair of the state's House Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the court will now use that same thought process for cases about banning military-style weapons.
For concealed carry permits, New York’s requirements are more onerous than Rhode Island’s are. Craven said he represented the city of East Providence, Rhode Island in three cases where permit denials were challenged in the past decade, and the city prevailed in all three at the state Supreme Court.
Craven said he’ll read the opinion in the New York case to determine whether or not it creates a concern that Rhode Island’s requirements could be challenged, and whether that can be remedied by state legislation.
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NEW YORK — New York's members of Congress reacted to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling that struck down a state gun law. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik applauded the ruling and said it “correctly declares New York’s shameful attempt to shred Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers unconstitutional.” Stefanik is a Republican and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump,
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called the ruling “irresponsible” and “downright dangerous.”
“Our nation is in the middle of a gun violence epidemic and instead of working to protect our communities, this court has made it even easier for potentially dangerous people to carry concealed handguns in public spaces,” the Democrat said.
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NEW YORK — Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a New York gun law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry one in public has no immediate impact on other laws, including rules on background checks and age requirements for gun purchases.
That’s according to Alex McCourt, the director of legal research for the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
McCourt said that instead, courts will reevaluate the laws, determining whether they violate the Second Amendment.
“It’s possible that these laws will face a new challenge, and that’s particularly true for any laws governing the public use of guns which was not previously considered part of the Second Amendment,” McCourt said.