The June 23, 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York Rifle and Pistol Club (NYRPA) v Bruen represents an immutable setback for the country in terms of public safety and firearm violence as well as a corrosive politicization of the Supreme Court as one of the three pillars of our democratic Constitution.
The decision’s fundamental flaws make the case for a “Second Amendment for 21st Century America” even stronger.
Sadly, the time to start on the effort to bring the Second Amendment into the 21st Century was months ago, before the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence defying decision gravely set back the cause of firearm safety and responsible gun ownership. The Court’s decision now greatly increases the prevalence of concealed firearms within society, with mounting daily incidents of violence and loss of innocent lives sure to result. Our law enforcement institutions and personnel will now be challenged — and endangered — as never before.
The Court’s decision contorts stare decisis and offers a very weak historical narrative of relevance only to the opinion’s author.
That the opinion drafted by Justice Thomas went beyond Justice Scalia’s flippant dismissal of the relevance and importance of the Amendment’s prefatory clause on a “well organized militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” is indefensible on its face. Justice Thomas’s questionable, indeed false, assertion that the Second Amendment’s foundation is self-defense is as tenuous as that made by Scalia in Heller when he asserted that the prefatory clause was of no significance in terms of determining “the right to bear arms”. Similarly, Justice Thomas’s opinion takes Justice Scalia’s assertion that it is “frivolous” to argue that “only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment” to even more absurd levels.
With the Court’s decision in NYRPA v Bruen, we mourn more than the future innocent victims of the gun violence that lies ahead.
June 23, 2022 Supreme Court Ruling in NYRPA v Bruen
Case Description
20-843 NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. V. BRUEN
DECISION BELOW: 818 Fed.Appx. 99
GRANTED LIMITED TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: WHETHER THE STATE'S
DENIAL OF PETITIONERS' APPLICATIONS FOR CONCEALED-CARRY LICENSES
FOR SELF-DEFENSE VIOLATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
CERT. GRANTED 4/26/2021
QUESTION PRESENTED:
New York prohibits its ordinary law-abiding citizens from carrying a handgun
outside the home without a license, and it denies licenses to every citizen who fails to
convince the state that he or she has “proper cause” to carry a firearm. In District of
Columbia v. Heller, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects “the individual
right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008),
and in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court held that this right “is fully applicable to
the States,” 561 U.S. 742, 750 (2010). For more than a decade since then, numerous
courts of appeals have squarely divided on this critical question: whether the Second
Amendment allows the government to deprive ordinary law-abiding citizens of the right
to possess and carry a handgun outside the home. This circuit split is open and
acknowledged, and it is squarely presented by this petition, in which the Second Circuit
affirmed the constitutionality of a New York regime that prohibits law-abiding individuals
from carrying a handgun unless they first demonstrate some form of “proper cause” that
distinguishes them from the body of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment.
The time has come for this Court to resolve this critical constitutional impasse and
reaffirm the citizens’ fundamental right to carry a handgun for self-defense.
The question presented is:
Whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary law abiding
citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self- defense.
LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 19-15
Transcript of November 3, 2021 Hearing