High Court seems ready to strike down NY gun law

The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed ready to strike down a restrictive New York gun permitting law, but the justices also seemed worried about issuing a broad ruling that could threaten gun restrictions on subways, bars, stadiums and other gathering places.

The court was hearing arguments in its biggest guns case in more than a decade, a dispute over whether New York's law violates the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” The law’s defenders have said striking it down would lead to more guns on the streets of cities including New York and Los Angeles.

Supreme Court decisions in 2008 and 2010 established a nationwide right to keep a gun at home for self-defense. The question the court is now confronting is about the right to carry a gun outside the home.

During two hours of arguments conservative members of the court, where they have a 6-3 majority, suggested New York's law and perhaps others like it in half a dozen other states go too far. Why, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, does a person seeking a license to carry a gun in public for self defense have to show a special need to do so.

But Roberts was also among the justices who pressed a lawyer for the law's challengers on the places where guns might be prohibited. Could a football stadium or a college campus be off limits, he asked. Could a state say “you cannot carry your gun at any place where alcohol is served?”

Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of New York residents who want an unrestricted right to carry concealed weapons in public, replied that while restrictions on carrying a weapon at government buildings and schools are likely fine, as the court suggested in 2008, bars “might be a tougher case for the government.”

Clement acknowledged that might be fine. In response to other questions, he said restrictions on guns in the New York City subway system and Yankee Stadium might also be okay.

In most of the country gun owners have little difficulty legally carrying their weapons when they go out. But about half a dozen states, including populous California and several Eastern states, restrict the carrying of guns to those who can demonstrate a particular need for doing so. The justices could decide whether those laws, known as “may issue” laws, can stand.

New York's law has been in place since 1913 and says that to carry a concealed handgun in public for self-defense, a person applying for a license has to demonstrate “proper cause,” an actual need to carry the weapon.

The Biden administration, which is urging the justices to uphold New York’s law, says California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have similar laws that could be affected by the court's decision. Those states make up about a quarter of the U.S. population.

The court’s liberal justices seemed willing to allow the state law to remain in place.

But the court’s conservatives suggested New York’s requirements are unduly restrictive.

The arguments at the high court come as gun violence has surged. New York has told the justices that if they side with the law’s challengers it would have “devastating consequences for public safety.” Gun control groups say if a high court ruling requires states to drop restrictions, the result will be more violence.

Gun rights groups, meanwhile, say the risk of a confrontation is precisely why they have a right to be armed for self-defense. Clement, arguing for the law's challengers, said the nation's founders envisioned people making their own decisions about carrying a firearm outside the home for self-defense.