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New York judges loosen gun laws after Supreme Court ruling

New York judges loosen gun laws after Supreme Court ruling

New York lawmakers began debating how to loosen the state’s gun licensing laws in an emergency session on Thursday to conform to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right for the people. bear arms in public for self-defense.

The state’s Democratic leaders criticized last week’s Supreme Court decision in a case that challenges New York’s century-old gun license laws.

The court’s six conservative majority judges ruled that it is unconstitutional to require law-abiding people to provide “adequate cause,” or some sort of special need, for self-defense firearms licenses.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul joined other Democratic leaders in saying the state would comply, but not without protest: She warned that the court had “added fuel to the fire” of gun violence.

“They removed our limitations on who can carry concealed weapons,” she told reporters, describing the court’s view of allowing guns in crowded venues and bars. “Imagine someone is talking to your girlfriend. You’re not very happy about it. And you have a gun and you have a temper and that’s what happens.”

She ordered the extraordinary session of the legislature in Albany to remove the “proper cause” requirement from the state’s gun license laws, while also codifying where guns would be banned.

New York’s efforts to maintain as many gun regulations as possible while complying with the Supreme Court will be watched closely, including by the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups.

The new ruling made it easier to challenge and strike down laws governing guns, and on Thursday the Supreme Court began to make its impact clear: Justices rejected recent lower court rulings that had upheld the Maryland assault rifle ban and of high-capacity ammunition magazines in New Jersey and California.

sensitive places

In its decision in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA) v. Bruen, the Supreme Court said it would likely accept courts, schools and government buildings as “sensitive places” where the public can be barred from carrying weapons, but it would disapprove of the label’s broad application. The ruling explicitly warned that trying to consider the entire island of Manhattan a sensitive place would be unconstitutional.

Hochul said he hoped the New York list would also include hospitals, day care centers, parks, zoos, playgrounds and public transportation. The NYSRPA said it would challenge a gun ban on the New York City subway system, which currently allows permit holders to carry their weapons with them.

Private companies are presumed not to have guns unless owners put a sign up front saying, “Hidden weapons are welcome here,” Hochul said.

The Supreme Court also said similar gun licensing regimes in California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington DC are also unconstitutional.

The revised licensing regimes should more closely resemble the gun laws of the 43 states where authorities are less free to deny people gun licenses, although the court ruled that people with certain types of criminal history or mental illness may still have the right to bear arms denied.

Hochul said there will be expanded shooting range training requirements before New Yorkers can qualify for a gun permit, and that the state will revive an old law that requires background checks for the purchase of certain types of ammunition.

But any gun regulations challenged in federal court must now survive a test set by the Supreme Court last week, which makes a gun regulation constitutional only if it is similar to the gun limits found in American history, particularly in the 18th century, when the Second Constitution of the Constitution The amendment was ratified.

New York’s current gun licensing rules were codified in 1913.

Source: CNN Brasil