On Monday, the Supreme Court turned down a challenge to New York’s new gun laws. This avoided a new case about the right to hold arms.
The court had refused to put the law on hold before it was passed. It went into effect right away after the justices expanded the right to carry a gun outside of the home in June 2022.
The decision takes into account a decision made in October by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which kept some parts of the law but threw out others.
People still can’t carry concealed guns in “sensitive locations” like hospitals, churches, parks, entertainment venues, and other places where a lot of people gather. A rule that gun users must have “good moral character” in order to get concealed carry licenses also does.
A rule that says people can’t carry concealed weapons on private land that is usually open to the public is still blocked, as is a rule that says people applying for concealed carry licenses have to give information about their social media accounts.
The Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 has caused a wave of new gun laws and court decisions that have thrown out some long-standing gun laws. Because of these two events, there have been a lot of appeals to the court asking the justices to make it clear what the 2022 rule meant.
Ivan Antonyuk and five other people who say they want to carry guns outside the home put forward the challenge.
A month after the Supreme Court threw out a century-old rule in New York that said people who want to carry handguns outside of their homes had to prove they had special needs for self-defence, the state’s lawmakers passed a law that bans guns in many public places and makes the requirements for getting a permit stricter.
The new rule, the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, also asks applicants for permits to give contact information for family members and people they live with, as well as information about their social media accounts.
While deciding in July that a federal law that keeps people with domestic violence protection orders from having guns is legal, the Supreme Court avoided a number of gun-related cases after that decision.
The court upheld the Biden administration’s plan last month to regulate “ghost gun” kits that are easy to put together to make guns. This case did not directly address the right to bear arms.
