Senate Breaks Decades-Long Impasse on Gun Safety

The 65-33 vote late Thursday was aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s gun law, likely limiting the ability of other state and local governments to restrict guns outside the home.

Image
Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, after the Senate passed the Gun Violence Prevention Bill on Thursday in Washington.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Pinned

Senate Passes Bipartisan Gun Bill, Breaking a Decades-Long Impasse

Video
Video player loading
Fifteen Senate Republicans joined all 50 Democrats to pass the legislation, which aims to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.CreditCredit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved bipartisan legislation on Thursday aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people, after a small group of Republicans joined Democrats to break through their party’s longstanding blockade of gun safety measures and shatter nearly three decades of congressional paralysis on toughening the nation’s gun laws.

Spurred to action by a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the Senate passed the measure 65 to 33, with 15 Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, breaking ranks to side with Democrats in support of the measure. Two Republican senators were absent.

It would enhance background checks for prospective gun buyers ages 18 to 21, requiring for the first time that juvenile records, including mental health records beginning at age 16, be vetted for potentially disqualifying material. The bill would provide incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws that allow guns to be temporarily confiscated from people deemed by a judge to be too dangerous to possess them. And it would tighten a federal ban on domestic abusers buying firearms, and strengthen laws against straw purchasing and trafficking of guns.

It also includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for mental health programs and to beef up security in schools.

“This is not a cure-all for all the ways gun violence affects our nation, but it is a long overdue step in the right direction,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said on the Senate floor. “It’s significant — it’s going to save lives.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California announced on Thursday night that the House would move to take up the measure on Friday morning. White House officials have said President Biden would sign it, calling the bill “one of the most significant steps Congress has taken to reduce gun violence in decades.”

The bipartisan breakthrough came on the same day that the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that placed strict limits on carrying guns outside the home, reflecting a stark divergence between the conservative-leaning court and the Democratic-controlled Congress on one of the most politically intractable issues in the country.

The vote tally also underscored how deeply polarizing the issue remains, and how fleeting the spirit of compromise around guns may be. Most Republicans opposed the bill, and most of those backing it will not face voters this year, suggesting that the measure was less an opening for a new era of bipartisan consensus on gun violence than a rare moment of agreement that may soon give way to more gridlock, particularly if Republicans win control of Congress this fall.

Still, a small group of Democrats and Republicans seized on the outrage that followed the massacre in Uvalde almost exactly one month ago and a racist mass shooting in Buffalo days before that to forge a modest compromise that could succeed where earlier attempts had repeatedly failed.

Mr. McConnell praised Democrats for being “willing to give up their wish list” and accept less than they have insisted on in past efforts at revamping gun laws.

He also conceded that he and other Republicans saw a clear political advantage in supporting the legislation in a midterm election year in which their path to winning control of Congress runs through the suburbs, where their party’s hard-right lurch has alienated many voters.

“It’s no secret that we’ve lost ground in suburban areas,” Mr. McConnell told reporters on Thursday night. “I hope it will be viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs we need to regain to be in the majority next year.”

The compromise, the product of an intense round of talks between a small group of Democrats and Republicans, omits many of the sweeping gun control measures that Democrats and activists have long called for.

Toiling to keep Republicans on board, Democrats left out their marquee gun control proposals, including a House-passed measure that would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people younger than 21, a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines and a federal red flag law. They also agreed that the enhanced background checks for younger buyers would expire after a decade, just as the assault weapons ban did in 2004, leaving future Congresses to haggle anew about whether to extend it.

But it included substantial breakthroughs beyond what Democrats had initially thought possible when they set out to find a modest deal that could, at the very least, show that Congress was capable of responding to national crisis.

“I’ve never seen families and kids and parents as scared as they were after Uvalde,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, the lead Democratic negotiator, said on Thursday. They were scared for their children’s safety, he said, “but they were also scared that their government was so fundamentally broken that it couldn’t step up and address the one thing that matters most to anybody in this country — the safety of our kids.”

Mr. Murphy said that while the legislation fell short of everything Democrats would like to pass, it provided “an answer that allows us to tell families all across this country that the era of inaction is over.”

The bill would set aside $750 million in federal grant funding to help states implement red flag laws and for other crisis intervention programs, including mental health courts.

In another change long sought by activists against domestic violence, it would include serious current or recent dating partners in a federal law that bars domestic abusers from being able to purchase a firearm, closing what has become known as the boyfriend loophole. The ban currently applies only to people who have been married to, have been living with or have a child with a victim.

The legislation would set aside millions of dollars, largely in grants, to address mental health in schools and communities, including $150 million for the national suicide hotline. It also would provide $300 million for school safety programs, including bolstering security and funding school resource officers.

Besides Mr. McConnell, the Republican support came from centrists, longtime veterans of previous failed negotiations, and notably, lawmakers just a couple of years into their latest term. Just two of the 15 Republicans, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana, are facing voters in November, and four are retiring.

In trying to make their case to Republicans, Mr. McConnell and Senator John Cornyn of Texas, his handpicked emissary to the talks, conducted a poll of 1,000 gun-owning households across the country and found that most supported the key elements. A solid majority backed increasing federal funding for states to maintain or implement red flag laws, and more than 80 percent supported closing the boyfriend loophole and allowing law enforcement to have more time to examine juvenile and mental health records.

That was not enough for most Senate Republicans, however, who argued that the measure would infringe upon the rights of gun owners.

“I’m angry that these horrific crimes keep happening, but I’m also angry that this august chamber plays political games,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who teamed with Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, in an unsuccessful effort to strip out the gun-related measures and divert federal funds to mental health and school safety programs.

“Do something that will stop these crimes — this bill ain’t that, but it does have provisions that are troubling,” Mr. Cruz added. “It does have provisions that satisfy the Democrat political priority to go after the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms of law-abiding citizens.”

Mr. Cruz was echoing some of the criticism that the National Rifle Association heaped on the bill. The group said the legislation “does little to truly address violent crime while opening the door to unnecessary burdens on the exercise of Second Amendment freedom by law-abiding gun owners.”

Democratic proponents said the legislation’s approval was possible only because the senators involved in the talks put aside their parties’ orthodoxies to find a deal.

“Our bipartisan group of senators rejected the notion that legislating must be a zero-sum game with winners on one tally sheet and losers on the other,” said Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a key Democratic negotiator who took on the role of conduit to the Republican side during the negotiations.

That meant Democrats had to tailor the bill’s provisions to appeal to Republicans. For instance, they accepted a G.O.P. demand that closing the boyfriend loophole would not be implemented retroactively and that dating partners who commit a single misdemeanor offense can regain the ability to purchase a gun after five years if their records remain clean.

“The potential we have to save lives is worth any sort of concession we might have had to make during the negotiation,” Mr. Cornyn said in a speech on Thursday night, in which he thanked his colleagues for ignoring “those who would spew disinformation and outright lies” about the measure. Afterward, several Democrats went up to Mr. Cornyn, who was heckled at a Republican gathering in Texas last week for last week for participating in the talks, to offer thanks and shake his hand.

Democrats were hoping that the majority of Republicans who opposed the bill would look out of step with voters in the coming midterm elections. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 59 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of independents favored raising the minimum legal age to buy any gun to 21. And the vast majority, including Republican voters, supported at least some gun control measures, including enhanced background checks.

A correction was made on 
June 23, 2022

An earlier version of this article misstated the day that senators took action on gun safety. The test vote was Thursday, not Wednesday.

How we handle corrections

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 11:08 p.m. ET

President Biden applauded the Senate, saying in a satement, “Families in Uvalde and Buffalo, and too many tragic shootings before, have demanded action. And tonight, we acted. This bipartisan legislation will help protect Americans.”

Emily Erdos
June 23, 2022, 10:50 p.m. ET

These are the 15 Republican senators who voted for the bipartisan gun bill.

Image
Senator John Cornyn this month in Washington. The Texas Republican helped negotiate the bill that was approved on Thursday. Credit...Oliver Contreras for The New York Times

The Senate passed a bipartisan measure aimed at gun safety, breaking a yearslong stalemate over federal legislation to address rampant violence. Fifteen Republican senators broke with their party to vote in favor of the bill, which passed 65 to 33. Only two of the Republicans who supported the bill are facing re-election this year, indicating how difficult it could be to advance similar compromises in the future.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, expressed public support for the bill, calling it “a common sense package of popular steps that will help make these horrifying incidents less likely while fully upholding the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.” He has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association, and his backing for the measure was seen as key to its passage. The other Republicans who supported the measure were:

  • Roy Blunt of Missouri, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, is not as moderate as other Republican senators who voted yes, and previously was leaning no on the bill. Mr. Blunt has said that he would not seek re-election this year. He has an A rating from the National Rifle Association.

  • Richard Burr of North Carolina signed onto the bipartisan gun framework released in early June. He is retiring from Congress at the end of the year and has an A+ rating from the N.R.A.

  • Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia was one of the surprise Republicans voting yes who previously deflected when asked where she stood on a gun control bill. Her home-state Democratic colleague, Joe Manchin, was an early and vocal supporter of a narrower bill during deliberations. Capito has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Bill Cassidy of Louisiana worked on the bill’s mental health component. He isn’t up for election until 2026 and has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Susan Collins of Maine was active in the negotiations over provisions for firearm trafficking, having introduced the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act last year. “There are mixed views back home, but by and large, the reaction has been positive because people realize that we’re not hurting law-abiding gun owners,” she said during discussions. She has a B rating from the N.R.A.

  • John Cornyn of Texas is a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who attempted to negotiate for expanded background checks last year and was booed at his state’s party convention this past weekend. He was picked by McConnell as a leader for the deliberations over the bill framework as a Republican in a room of centrists who could make or break the bill. He has an A+ rating from the N.R.A.

  • Joni Ernst of Iowa serves on Mr. McConnell’s leadership team as vice chairwoman of the Senate Republican Conference. Before Wednesday’s initial vote, Ms. Ernst’s phone was flooded with calls from constituents hoping to sway her to vote for the bill. She has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Lindsey Graham of South Carolina co-sponsored a restraining order bill in 2018 with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, to take away firearms from people who might pose a risk. He has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is up for re-election in November as a moderate and has been rewarded by her constituency for her independent streak. “If what we’re doing is making things safer, without taking away people’s Second Amendment rights, I think maybe we’ve knit this just the way it needed to be,” she said. Ms. Murkowski has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Robert Portman of Ohio is one of the 10 Republican senators who endorsed the bill framework in early June. He will retire this year and has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Mitt Romney of Utah, along with Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski, is known as one of the Republican swing votes in the Senate. He signed the bill framework in June and has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Thom Tillis of North Carolina was a leader in the negotiations alongside Mr. Cornyn and Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. Mr. Tillis has an A rating from the N.R.A.

  • Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania is one of two Republicans who supported expanded background check legislation in 2013. He is retiring from the Senate this year and has a C rating from the N.R.A.

  • Todd Young of Indiana was a more surprising Republican yes vote. On Wednesday, he suggested that he was still examining the details of the bill. “We didn’t have a whole lot of time to review the text and solicit, from various stakeholders and experts, thoughts on it. I remain open to supporting it. I also remain open to not supporting it,” he said. He has an A+ rating from the N.R.A.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 10:26 p.m. ET

In a statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California confirms the House will take up the package Friday. “While we must do more, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a step forward that will help protect our children and save lives.”

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 10:21 p.m. ET

The Senate, to mild applause in the chamber, has passed the gun reform package 65-33. Fifteen Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in support, and it now heads to the House.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 10:04 p.m. ET

Negotiators are giddy on the Senate floor during final passage, shaking hands and hugging their colleagues as they voted for the measure. There are advocates and survivors in the gallery watching the proceeding, and some House lawmakers on the floor.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 9:38 p.m. ET

Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, has championed gun reform for a decade, since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He is thanking advocates and survivors of gun violence for their support and efforts, calling them “people who would not take no for an answer.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 9:14 p.m. ET

After Cornyn’s speech, several Democrats and a few Republicans made a point of going over to thank him and shake his hand. He played a key role in both negotiations and getting Republican support for this.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 9:01 p.m. ET

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican negotiator on the bill, is speaking on the Senate floor. He’s giving a passionate speech, thanking his colleagues for supporting the measure and for ignoring what he described as lies and disinformation about it.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 8:59 p.m. ET

Senator Ted Cruz’s procedural vote failed, and it appears increasingly likely that the Senate will vote to pass the gun reform measure tonight.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 8:01 p.m. ET

The Senate is now voting on a procedural motion from Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, to stop passage of the gun reform compromise. The motion is expected to fail. However, as senators hope for an agreement to quickly pass the final product, it’s also a good way to get those conversations going on the floor.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
June 23, 2022, 8:00 p.m. ET

Stricter gun laws might have made a difference in these mass shootings.

Image

If the key gun control proposals now being considered in Congress had been law since 1999, four gunmen younger than 21 would have been blocked from legally buying the rifles they used in mass shootings, according to a New York Times analysis referenced in a June 8 congressional hearing on gun violence.

At least four other assailants would have been subject to a required background check, instead of slipping through a loophole. Ten might have been unable to steal their weapons because of efforts to require or encourage safer gun storage. And 20 might not have been allowed to legally purchase the large-capacity magazines that they used to upgrade their guns, helping them kill, on average, 16 people each.

Taken together, those four measures might have changed the course of at least 35 mass shootings — a third of such episodes in the United States since the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, a New York Times analysis has found. Those 35 shootings killed a combined 446 people.

Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts, quoted from the Times report during the hearing.

Maggie AstorAdam Liptak
June 23, 2022, 7:31 p.m. ET

Key excerpts from the ruling, the concurring opinions and the dissent.

Image
The Supreme Court in 2021. Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and its associated concurrences and dissents total 135 pages. We read them in full and collected some key excerpts.

A copy of the full ruling is available here. The excerpts below omit internal citations.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion of the court, a 6-3 ruling in which he was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. The opinion held that “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

In concluding that New York had violated the Constitution by requiring people to show “proper cause” when applying for a license to carry a handgun in public, Justice Thomas wrote (Pages 68-69):

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’ We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.

New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”

Justice Thomas set out a new standard by which courts should evaluate gun restrictions (Page 14):

“To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, focused on the toll of gun violence. He cited a long list of statistics and criticized the majority’s conclusion that gun regulations had to be historically rooted in order to pass constitutional muster (Page 85-86):

“The court wrongly limits its analysis to focus nearly exclusively on history. It refuses to consider the government interests that justify a challenged gun regulation, regardless of how compelling those interests may be. The Constitution contains no such limitation, and neither do our precedents. … The question before us concerns the extent to which the Second Amendment prevents democratically elected officials from enacting laws to address the serious problem of gun violence. And yet the court today purports to answer that question without discussing the nature or severity of that problem.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito suggested that the statistics Justice Breyer cited were irrelevant (Page 71):

“Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.”

Justice Breyer responded by arguing that the complex facts of gun violence, and the differing circumstances in different parts of the country, made the issue best suited for resolution by state legislators, not by courts (Page 92):

“The primary difference between the court’s view and mine is that I believe the Amendment allows states to take account of the serious problems posed by gun violence that I have just described. I fear that the court’s interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves states without the ability to address them.”

In an important concurring opinion — one that appeared to limit the sweep of the majority opinion — Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, wrote that some licensing requirements remained presumptively constitutional.

In reference to “shall-issue regimes” — that is, states in which officials “must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability,” in the words of Justice Thomas’s majority opinion — Justice Kavanaugh wrote (Page 80):

“Those shall-issue regimes may require a license applicant to undergo fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements. Unlike New York’s may-issue regime, those shall-issue regimes do not grant open-ended discretion to licensing officials and do not require a showing of some special need apart from self-defense. As petitioners acknowledge, shall-issue licensing regimes are constitutionally permissible, subject of course to an as-applied challenge if a shall-issue licensing regime does not operate in that manner in practice.

Going forward, therefore, the 43 states that employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes for carrying handguns for self-defense may continue to do so. Likewise, the six states including New York potentially affected by today’s decision may continue to require licenses for carrying handguns for self-defense so long as those states employ objective licensing requirements like those used by the 43 shall-issue states.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Jazmine Hughes
June 23, 2022, 6:17 p.m. ET

New York City community groups that fight gun violence are dismayed by the ruling.

Image
Members of New York City’s Crisis Management System in Brooklyn in September 2020, demanding more funding to fight the wave of gun violence that struck the city that year.Credit...Alba Vigaray/EPA, via Shutterstock

Members of community-based anti-violence groups expressed dismay following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn New York’s restrictions on carrying guns, saying it would only make their work harder.

“I understand people talking about wanting to feel safe, but you also have people who don’t know how to utilize weapons for protection,” said Vanessa Johnson, who worked as a peer violence educator with the city’s Crisis Management System for seven years. “It’s different when you have a firearm to protect yourself and your family, and then people using it senselessly.”

The ruling came as the city continued to grapple with levels of gun violence far higher than the historic lows that preceded the pandemic. In 2019, there were 777 recorded shooting incidents in New York. The following year, that number doubled to 1,562. Shootings are down about 10 percent so far this year, according to police statistics, but are still well above 2019.

Mayor Eric Adams, who focused his campaign on public safety, appointed a gun violence czar this month and has considered declaring a state of emergency in response to a wave of shootings that has now lasted more than two years.

Anthony Perkins, the senior advocacy associate for BronxConnect, a community organization to deter violence, worried that the ruling would result in an increase in retaliatory shootings in communities where gun violence is already an issue.

Mr. Perkins said that the ruling would challenge both community-based violence disrupters and the police.

“All a person has to say now is self-defense, that they felt threatened,” Mr. Perkins said. “For some of our communities, feeling threatened is a way of life. If you live in a bad neighborhood, you feel threatened. Now imagine someone who’s a little bit jumpy to begin with, because their neighborhood isn’t the greatest, and now they have a license to carry a gun.”

Maggie Astor
June 23, 2022, 5:48 p.m. ET

The latest on the Supreme Court’s ruling and the Senate’s passage of a national gun safety law.

Image
Rifles on Thursday at a gun store in Hempstead, N.Y.Credit...Brittainy Newman/Associated Press

It was a rare, discordant day in American politics, as two branches of government moved in opposite directions on one of the country’s most intractable issues.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution limits state and local government in restricting guns outside the home. Hours later, the Senate passed a bipartisan set of gun restrictions in response to a series of mass shootings.

Before Thursday, the Supreme Court had not issued a major Second Amendment ruling since 2008, and the Senate had not broken a filibuster on a significant firearms bill in nearly three decades.

Here is an overview of what happened.

  • The Senate approved bipartisan legislation to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. The bill passed on a resounding 65-33 vote, with 15 Republicans voting in favor — a result that seemed politically unthinkable just a few weeks ago.

    It still needs to pass the House and be signed by President Biden before becoming law, but that is all but assured. The Senate filibuster, which required 60 votes to overcome, was the only serious obstacle, and that is now in the rearview mirror.

    The bill is a bipartisan compromise in response to mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It would strengthen background checks for gun buyers 18 to 21 years old, create incentives for state “red flag” laws that let officials temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, and add unmarried dating partners to a federal law that blocks domestic abusers from buying guns.

  • The Supreme Court struck down a New York law that barred people from carrying a handgun in public unless they had “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” The 6-to-3 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen — written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s staunchest gun rights supporter — held that the Second Amendment protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

    That expanded on the court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found an individual right to carry a handgun for self-defense inside one’s home. Under the standard established by Thursday’s ruling, lawmakers who wish to restrict gun ownership “must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

    The case concerned a New York requirement that had existed for more than a century.

  • In the short term, the Supreme Court’s decision will affect New York and several other states that have similar laws, including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. But those laws will not disappear immediately. The ruling means the case will return to a lower court in New York for proceedings “consistent with” the justices’ opinion, and that court could allow a grace period for legislators to rewrite regulations.

    Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, called the ruling “shocking” and said she would call a special session of the state legislature to draft laws that could pass muster. Democrats in Maryland said they would also consider passing new laws, and other states may do the same.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
June 23, 2022, 5:11 p.m. ET

In Hawaii, Alan Alexander Beck said his client, George Young, was “ecstatic” about the Supreme Court decision. Young has been fighting Hawaii’s law, which is similar to the New York law that was struck down on Thursday. “He’s finally had his Second Amendment rights vindicated,” Beck said of Young.

Image
Credit...Reuters
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
June 23, 2022, 4:31 p.m. ET

President Biden tells reporters that while he is disappointed about the Supreme Court ruling on guns, “there is one little bit of solace. The majority opinion has laid out that it affects not every state.”

Zach MontagueMaggie Astor
June 23, 2022, 3:55 p.m. ET

In dissent, Justice Breyer emphasized the more than 275 mass shootings so far this year.

Image
Small chairs are positioned as a memorial for the victims of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.Credit...Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Dissenting in the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer cited a slew of statistics illustrating the deadly toll of guns.

He took particular note of mass shootings, noting that there had already been 277 in the United States this year — a number that increased by two after he wrote the dissent.

“Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry or use firearms of different kinds,” Justice Breyer wrote. “The court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”

A string of mass shootings in recent months has pushed Congress to the brink of passing new national regulations on guns.

The massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States so far this year. It happened just 10 days after 10 people were shot and killed at a supermarket in Buffalo.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization, has counted at least 279 such shootings, defined as ones in which four or more people were killed or injured, through this week. (Justice Breyer’s dissent gave the number as 277, saying he last checked the archive Monday; two more occurred that very day.) Of those shootings, 14 involved four or more fatalities.

The group recorded 692 mass shootings last year, with 28 involving four or more fatalities.

The full toll of gun violence in the United States is far larger, as mass shootings account for only a small percentage of deaths and injuries. Justice Breyer’s dissent began by noting that firearms killed 45,222 Americans in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that shootings kill more children and adolescents than any other cause, including motor vehicle crashes.

The United States has more civilian-owned firearms than citizens — about 120 guns per 100 people, according to statistics Justice Breyer cited — and also has a much higher rate of gun violence than other wealthy democracies.

Justice Breyer argued that the six-justice majority that struck down New York’s law had erred by not taking that toll into account and instead basing its application of the Second Amendment “nearly exclusively on history.”

“It refuses to consider the government interests that justify a challenged gun regulation, regardless of how compelling those interests may be. The Constitution contains no such limitation, and neither do our precedents,” he wrote, adding: “In my view, when courts interpret the Second Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary, for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun violence that lead states to regulate firearms.”

Justice Breyer wrote that the court was considering the degree to which the Second Amendment prevents governments from enacting laws to address gun violence. But the court ignored the magnitude of the violence itself, he said:

“The court today purports to answer that question without discussing the nature or severity of that problem.”

Christine Hauser contributed reporting.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
June 23, 2022, 3:46 p.m. ET

Asked about the Supreme Court ruling that will make it harder for state and local governments to restrict who carries guns in public, President Biden tells reporters: “I think it’s a bad decision. I’m disappointed.”

Stephanie LaiEmily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 3:39 p.m. ET

Here’s what is in the Senate’s gun bill — and what was left out.

Image
Gun safety demonstrators protesting in Washington in early June. The Senate passed bipartisan legislation on Thursday.Credit...Al Drago for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday passed a bipartisan bill aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, the product of a compromise that could bring about the most substantial gun safety legislation in decades.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, written by a small group of Republicans and Democrats in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings, would enhance background checks for gun buyers between 18 and 21 years old, incentivize states to enact “red flag” laws that enable firearms to be temporarily confiscated from people deemed dangerous, and provide hundreds of millions of dollars for mental health and school safety. It would also extend to dating partners a federal law that prohibits domestic abusers from purchasing guns.

Fifteen Republicans crossed party lines to side with Democrats in support of the measure, which passed 65 to 33.

The 80-page bill falls short of the toughest gun control measures that Democrats have long sought, but its enactment would still represent a remarkable breakthrough after years of stalemate in Congress on addressing gun violence in the United States. To win over Republicans, Democrats had to drop some of their more expansive proposals, many of which have passed the House but stalled in the Senate amid Republican opposition.

Here’s a look at what’s in the bill — and what was left out.

Enhanced background checks for younger gun buyers

Juvenile records, including those regarding mental health, would for the first time be required in criminal background checks for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21, and authorities would have more time to conduct the checks — 10 days, up from the current three.

Under the legislation, federal authorities would have to check with local law enforcement and review state records to determine if a prospective buyer has a juvenile criminal or mental health history that would disqualify them from purchasing a gun. If they found such a record, they would turn it over to the F.B.I. for further investigation.

What was left out: The proposal falls far short of legislation that has passed the House that would ban anyone under the age of 21 from buying a semiautomatic weapon.

Democrats also agreed to allow the enhanced background check requirement for younger buyers to expire after 10 years, leaving future Congresses to haggle over whether it should be extended. A similar “sunset” provision allowed the federal assault weapons ban enacted in 1994 to lapse in 2004, to the dismay of Democrats, who have never been able to muster enough support to revive it.

And there is a limit on how long authorities would be able to reach back into a buyer’s mental health history; such records from before a potential buyer turned 16 could not disqualify them from buying a gun.

Incentives for states to implement red flag laws

The bill would provide $750 million in federal money to states that create so-called red flag laws, which allow guns to be temporarily confiscated from people deemed dangerous by a judge. The funding, meant to incentivize the enactment of such measures, would also support the creation of crisis intervention court programs.

What was left out: Democrats wanted to go further than providing incentives to states and enact a federal red flag measure, passed in the House, that would allow guns to be taken from anyone deemed by a federal judge to be dangerous.

Closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’

One of the bill’s last sticking points was a provision to toughen federal law to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. It would expand current law that bars people convicted of domestic violence or subject to a domestic violence restraining order from buying a gun. The current law applies only to people who are married to or lived with the victim, or had a child with them.

The legislation would include other intimate partners, closing what has come to be known as the “boyfriend loophole.”

What was left out: Democrats wanted a blanket prohibition, but in negotiations with Republicans, they agreed to allow some offenders to regain the ability to purchase a gun. If a person is a first-time offender and the crime is a violent misdemeanor, the ban would disappear five years after the end of their criminal sentence, so long as they did not commit further violent crimes. Negotiators also agreed not to make the provision retroactive, bowing to another demand by Republicans.

Funding for mental health and school safety

The bill would allocate billions of dollars to schools and communities for expanding mental health programs. The funding also aims to boost school safety. The bill grants $300 million over five years for school safety programs targeting violence that would fund school resource officers and beef up security in schools. In addition, funding would go to training school personnel and adults who interact with minors to respond to mental health issues.

What was left out: Republicans insisted on keeping the cost of the bill as low as possible. In total, the measure would cost $13.2 billion.

Tougher penalties on illegal purchases

The bill would crack down on “straw purchasers” or people who buy guns for those who would not qualify. No current law specifically prohibits these purchasers or illegal gun trafficking, so prosecutors have relied on people who make false statements in connection with purchasing a gun.

The bill would establish a penalty of up to 15 years in prison or 25 years if the firearms are used in connection with serious criminal activity like drug trafficking or terrorism. It would also provide resources to help prevent and investigate these purchases.

What was left out: The bill does not include more sweeping measures to impose universal background checks or ban the sale of large-capacity magazines. Republicans also said they refused to consider any mandatory waiting period for gun sales or a license requirement to purchase an assault weapon.

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

Troy Closson
June 23, 2022, 3:27 p.m. ET

‘It’s ridiculous’: Relatives of Buffalo massacre victims express anger at the decision.

Image
A memorial in front of the Tops supermarket in Buffalo that was the site of a racist mass shooting last month.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

As the Supreme Court struck down a New York State law that strictly limited the carrying of handguns, the decision prompted frustration among some in Buffalo, the state’s second-largest city where 10 people were killed in gunfire at a grocery store last month.

The 18-year-old gunman was armed with a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle that was purchased legally at a store near his hometown. Ten days after the attack, another high-profile massacre unfolded at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 were slain.

Zeneta Everhart, whose 21-year-old son Zaire Goodman was shot in Buffalo but survived, said in an interview Thursday that “as a mother, I’m heartbroken that this country isn’t protecting Zaire.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Ms. Everhart said. “When is enough going to be enough? What else has to happen before this country wakes up and understands that the people in this country don’t feel safe. The government, the courts, the lawmakers, they are here to protect us — and I don’t feel protected.”

She added that while she supports the tenets of the Second Amendment, she believes that “people should have to earn the right to handle a firearm in this country.”

In his concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito directly cited the May 14 massacre, suggesting that it showed the state’s law was not improving safety.

“Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home?” he wrote. “And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.”

Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose 86-year-old mother Ruth Whitfield was killed in the massacre, said in a Thursday interview that he believed the reference to Buffalo was inappropriate.

“If he wanted to bring up Buffalo, he should have talked about white supremacy,” he said in reference to the racist ideologies espoused by the gunman. “The court is illegitimate at this point. It’s completely been politicized.”

Mr. Whitfield Jr. said that he felt the nation was taking “one step forward and two steps back,” given that the decision came on the same day that the Senate moved closer to approving bipartisan gun safety legislation.

“It’s a kick in the teeth. It’s hurtful,” he said.

New York became the first in the nation to pass new legislation earlier this month in the shadow of the killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, approving several bills including one to increase the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21.

Wayne Jones, who lost his mother Celestine Chaney, 65, in the Buffalo massacre, said Thursday that he held mixed feelings about the decision. He empathizes with residents who might worry about weapons being carried, he said, but shares the view of public defenders that the current law disproportionately affected people of color.

“My thing about the gun situation is they’ve targeted the Black community,” Mr. Jones said in an interview. “The big fight needs to be these assault weapons. You don’t need them. And we need to get them off the streets.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Glenn Thrush
June 23, 2022, 3:10 p.m. ET

The decision is expected to spur a wave of lawsuits seeking to overturn local gun restrictions.

Image
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco spoke last month at the Department of Justice in Washington. She predicted the ruling would “spawn a great deal of litigation” by gun rights proponents.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down New York’s restrictions on carrying guns in public is the most sweeping ruling on firearms in decades, forcing five states to drastically loosen their gun regulations.

But in the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas also upended the existing constitutional standard for what is considered a “sensitive” public place where a firearms ban would be allowed under the Second Amendment.

That has injected an immediate element of uncertainty into the country’s patchwork of local and federal firearms regulations — and will almost certainly prompt dozens of legal challenges against many more localities, states, and perhaps the federal government, according to legal experts and officials.

Expressing disappointment in the ruling, Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, predicted the court’s decision would “spawn a great deal of litigation” by gun rights proponents seeking to overturn existing state and federal restrictions.

The ruling, in effect, establishes a far less constraining standard than the prior standard that federal judges can now apply in gun cases.

States and localities must now prove that exclusionary or restrictive gun laws are based on historical assessments of how guns have been traditionally carried or used — and not solely on the determination of public safety needs by officials, as has been the case since a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2008.

While the decision on Thursday did not go as far as some gun control groups had feared, it was widely viewed as an immense setback.

“Let’s go with catastrophe,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel with the Giffords Law Center, the legal arm of the national gun safety group.

“The next set of questions that need to be addressed, because the decision leaves it unanswered, is whether cities like New York ban guns on transit, and what are the standards that will now be applied in other jurisdictions that want to restrict or prohibit the carrying of guns because they view them as a danger to the public,” he added.

Justice Department officials are assessing the consequences of the ruling on their procedures. Some restrictions, they believe, like the carrying of weapons into courts, will remain in effect — but they are less sure about restrictions in post offices, museums and other facilities where guns are currently banned.

Gun rights organizations welcomed the ruling, saying it was a necessary constitutional check against the growing restrictions imposed in New York, California, New Jersey and other states that have tried to restrict access to firearms amid rising crime rates and mass shootings.

“The court has made clear that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not limited to the home,” said Larry Keane, a top official with the gun industry’s top trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “That the burden is on the government to justify restrictions, not on the individual to justify to the government a need to exercise their rights.”

Nate Cohn
June 23, 2022, 2:54 p.m. ET

Voters say they want gun control, but their votes say something different.

National Polls Overstated Voters’ Support for Background Checks

State referendums in Maine, Nevada, Washington and California drastically underperformed expectations. Instead, support for background checks mirrored a state’s partisan composition.

Expectations and actual results for referendums on background checks:
California (2016)
Expected support 91%
Actual support 63%
Washington (2014)
Expected support 81%
Actual support 59%
Nevada (2016)
Expected support 86%
Actual support 50%
Maine (2016)
Expected support 83%
Actual support 48%

“Expected support” is a modeled estimate by Chris Warshaw and Devin Caughey, based on available national survey data. The California referendum was on ammunition background checks.

It’s one of the most puzzling questions for Democrats in American politics: Why is the political system so unresponsive to gun violence? Expanded background checks routinely receive more than 80 percent or 90 percent support in polling. Yet gun control legislation usually gets stymied in Washington and Republicans never seem to pay a political price for their opposition.

There have been countless explanations offered about why political reality seems so at odds with the polling, including the power of the gun lobby; the importance of single-issue voters; and the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate.

But there’s another possibility, one that might be the most sobering of all for gun control supporters: Their problem could also be the voters, not just politicians or special interests.

When voters in four Democratic-leaning states got the opportunity to enact expanded gun or ammunition background checks into law, the overwhelming support suggested by national surveys was nowhere to be found. Instead, the initiative and referendum results in Maine, Washington, Nevada and California were nearly identical to those of the 2016 presidential election, all the way down to the results of individual counties. (California’s referendum was over ammunition background checks.)

Hillary Clinton fared better at the ballot box than expanded background checks in the same states, most on the same day among the same voters.

The usual theories for America’s conservative gun politics do not explain the poor showings. The supporters of the initiatives outspent the all-powerful gun lobby. All manner of voters, not just single-issue voters or politicians, got an equal say. The Senate was not to blame; indeed, the results suggested that a national referendum on background checks would have lost. And while the question on every ballot was different and each campaign fought differently as well, the final results were largely indistinguishable from one another.

To be sure, background checks could prove more politically resonant in 2022 or in the future than they were in 2016. Public support for new gun restrictions tends to rise in the wake of mass shootings. There is already evidence that public support for stricter gun laws has surged again in the aftermath of the killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. While the public’s support for new restrictions tends to subside thereafter, these shootings or another could still produce a lasting shift in public opinion.

But the poor results for background checks suggest that public opinion may not be the unequivocal ally of gun control that the polling makes it seem.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
June 23, 2022, 2:28 p.m. ET

Biden calls on states to enact gun control measures.

Image
President Biden on Thursday at the White House.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

President Biden urged states on Thursday to impose gun control measures after the Supreme Court issued a decision that will make it harder for state and local governments to restrict who can carry guns in public.

In a statement shortly after the ruling, which struck down a New York law limiting guns in public, Mr. Biden said it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.”

“We must do more as a society — not less — to protect our fellow Americans,” the president said. “I remain committed to doing everything in my power to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.”

The ruling came as Congress moved closer to approving a bipartisan gun control measure aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people. The legislation would be much more modest than the restrictions the president has called for.

In his statement, Mr. Biden cast the decision as one that “should deeply trouble us all” and cited a landmark Supreme Court case in 2008 that endorsed the individual rights of gun owners while also ruling that the Second Amendment was “not absolute.”

“For centuries, states have regulated who may purchase or possess weapons, the types of weapons they may use, and the places they may carry those weapons,” Mr. Biden said. “And the courts have upheld these regulations. I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”

At a round table with state attorneys general on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday’s ruling “defies logic in terms of what we know we are capable of doing with reasonable gun safety laws to secure the safety and well-being of the people of our nation.”

The Supreme Court decision will likely heighten pressure on Mr. Biden to use his own authority to impose gun control measures. But after last month’s racist massacre in Buffalo that killed 10, Mr. Biden acknowledged there was little he could do without the help of Congress.

The administration has already imposed restrictions on untraceable firearms that can be purchased online and assembled. Mr. Biden has also repeatedly asked states to spend stimulus funds on police departments and programs centered on preventing gun violence.

Serge Kovaleski
June 23, 2022, 2:17 p.m. ET

Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said on Twitter that the court’s decision was “a tragic ruling.”

"Based on a deeply flawed constitutional methodology, a right-wing majority on the United States Supreme Court has just said that states can no longer decide for ourselves how best to limit the proliferation of firearms in the public sphere," the governor said.

Mr. Murphy further said that in anticipation of the decision, his administration has been reviewing options “we believe are still available to us regarding who can carry concealed weapons and where they can carry them.”

Dana Rubinstein
June 23, 2022, 2:08 p.m. ET

‘We won’t have any sleep’: Mayor of New York City reacts to court ruling.

Video
Video player loading
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City called the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down New York’s concealed-carry law disconnected from reality and pledged to work to limit its impact in the city.CreditCredit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down New York State’s concealed carry gun law was “appalling,” and “just not rooted in reality,” Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, said Thursday.

And no city, he argued, would be as heavily hit as the nation’s largest.

“This decision has made every single one of us less safe from gun violence,” Mr. Adams said, speaking to reporters from City Hall alongside the police commissioner, Keechant Sewell. “There is no place in the nation that this decision affects as much as New York City.”

New York City continues to contend with a spike in some forms of violent crime that began early in the pandemic. Mr. Adams won last year’s competitive Democratic primary for mayor largely on the premise that only he, a Black former police captain and police reformer, could rein in crime while respecting civil liberties.

While it is difficult to legally carry handguns in New York City, the five boroughs have for years been inundated by guns from elsewhere — many coming north via the Interstate 95 corridor sometimes referred to as the Iron Pipeline.

Mr. Adams said that to the extent the court’s decision makes it substantially easier to legally carry guns in New York City, it threatens to undermine efforts to increase safety.

“If this ruling is implemented, the Iron Pipeline is going to be the Van Wyck, not the I-95,” the mayor said, referring to the expressway that runs through the borough of Queens. “The guns are going to be purchased here.”

Though the ruling will make it harder to limit who can legally carry a gun, the mayor suggested it might allow the city to delineate areas where stricter regulations could be implemented, such as schools or playgrounds. Mr. Adams said he and his team were busy compiling a list of such sensitive locations.

Even as he warned New York City residents that the decision threatened an abrupt and dramatic change to gun laws, he cautioned that because the Supreme Court has remanded its decision to a lower court, the status quo remains — for the moment.

“We want to be clear on that,” he said. “Nothing changes today.”

Mr. Adams also urged Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, to call a special legislative session in Albany to pass gun laws in response to the court ruling.

“We’re a densely populated city, millions of people use our transportation system, traffic accidents can escalate into gunfights,” he said. “A bad moment can turn into a bad shooting.”

Mr. Adams has long said the Supreme Court decision on handguns had kept him up at night.

Now, the mayor said, “We won’t have any sleep.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Grace AshfordNicholas Fandos
June 23, 2022, 2:00 p.m. ET

In New York campaigns, the partisan gun divide emerges swiftly.

Image
Representative Thomas Suozzi, who is running for New York governor, said the incumbent, Kathy Hochul, should be acting faster. Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

With New York’s primaries drawing close, Democratic and Republican hopefuls for governor responded to the news that the Supreme Court had struck down the state’s concealed-carry law in sharply partisan terms.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who is running for her first full term, denounced the ruling, saying that the move by the court’s conservative majority to roll back gun laws amid the nation’s current spasm of violence would add fuel to an already deadly fire. She vowed to call lawmakers back for a special session to impose new restrictions, likely in July.

But even as Ms. Hochul demanded action, one of her leading opponents, Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, again slammed her for accepting support from the National Rifle Association in a past campaign for Congress. Speaking with reporters, Mr. Suozzi pointed out that Ms. Hochul had voted in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011 to allow people with concealed-carry permits to cross state borders. He said the governor must call lawmakers back no later than Friday to find a solution.

“I would support anything making concealed carry as restrictive as possible while still meeting constitutional muster,” Mr. Suozzi said.

Ana María Archila, a progressive activist who is running for lieutenant governor, said that the ruling was devastating, but not surprising.

“For years, we have warned about the extremists Trump put on the court,” said Ms. Archila, who gained national attention for confronting Senator Jeff Flake during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

She urged the state to not only change gun laws but also invest $1 billion in violence prevention, youth programs and victim services.

“This is not a time for half measures,” she said.

Not everyone was outraged by the ruling.

Representative Lee Zeldin, the presumptive favorite for the Republican Party’s nomination for governor, applauded the decision, which he called a “defense of the constitutional rights of law-abiding New Yorkers who have been under attack for far too long.”

Mr. Zeldin warned Ms. Hochul against changing the state’s gun laws, saying that to do so would only assure his election. “New Yorkers need and deserve a governor who unapologetically defends freedoms, liberty and the Constitution,” he said in a statement.

In a Tuesday primary, Mr. Zeldin will face the businessman Harry Wilson; Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and a former Westchester County executive, Rob Astorino. Mr. Astorino also cheered the ruling, saying, “Today’s court decision finally makes that clear to liberal government officials who neither followed nor understood the Constitution.”

Ashley Southall
June 23, 2022, 1:50 p.m. ET

Beau Duffy, a spokesman for the New York State Police, the defendant in the concealed-carry case, said the agency was reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision and declined to comment further.

Jason Karaian
June 23, 2022, 1:48 p.m. ET

The share prices of gunmakers and ammunition manufacturers have jumped in trading on Wall Street, led by Smith & Wesson, which is up more than 9 percent, and Sturm Ruger, up nearly 4 percent. Firearms companies often rally when investors anticipate a spike in sales ahead of calls for stricter laws, as after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, but today’s moves suggest that legal victories over limits on guns are also seen as good for business.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Zolan Kanno-Youngs
June 23, 2022, 1:40 p.m. ET

At a roundtable with state attorneys general on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris said the Supreme Court ruling “defies logic in terms of what we know we are capable of doing with reasonable gun safety laws to secure the safety and well-being of the people of our nation.” She and President Biden “are deeply concerned and troubled by the Supreme Court’s ruling today,” she said. “It, I believe, defies common sense and the Constitution of the United States.”

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
June 23, 2022, 1:33 p.m. ET

Democratic lawmakers in Maryland said they might draft new laws that could survive the legal challenges that are expected in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
June 23, 2022, 1:32 p.m. ET

Maryland is among several states with a gun restriction that is expected to be challenged in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Brian Frosh, Maryland’s attorney general, said in a statement that the court’s decision would mean “more deaths and more pain in a country already awash in gun violence.” He said his office was reviewing the ruling and would “continue to fight” to keep Maryland residents safe.

Jonah E. Bromwich
June 23, 2022, 1:29 p.m. ET

The New York gun law struck down on Thursday is still in force — for now.

Image
A handgun turned in at a buyback event in Brooklyn in May 2021.Credit...Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

The Supreme Court has ruled that New York’s law governing the carrying of handguns is unconstitutional, but the law is not yet off the books.

The case will now be sent back to a lower court — the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — which is expected to send it back to Federal District Court in New York, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in constitutional law and gun policy.

That court is likely to give officials in New York a grace period, instead of striking the law down immediately, Mr. Winkler said.

“We have seen this happen in the past where the courts have given lawmakers some time so they can adopt a law,” he said. In this case, he added the alternative would be to “have everyone carry guns on the streets of New York.”

New York officials rushed to explain that complicated procedure to the public.

New York City’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, cautioned New Yorkers that nothing had changed yet and warned, “If you carry a gun illegally in New York City you will be arrested.”

In six other states, the laws governing the public carrying of handguns, which are similar to New York’s, are likely to be challenged immediately. The challenges will almost certainly be successful, given the Supreme Court’s ruling, and judges in those states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey — will decide whether officials will have a grace period to pass new laws.

Those laws will not be permitted to bar the carrying of handguns in entire cities. But certain “sensitive places” will almost certainly be subject to restrictions, such as schools, government buildings and polling places. And cities and states are likely to be inventive in designating locations as sensitive.

Joseph Blocher, a Second Amendment expert at Duke University School of Law, said that hard questions would arise when such sensitive locations were densely concentrated.

He explained that officials could conceivably bar the carrying of guns from within 100 feet of a school or a government building, and that adding such buffer zones could make it so that a substantial part of a city is off-limits to the concealed carrying of handguns. But he said that whether such restrictions would pass muster with the courts was “an open question.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 1:24 p.m. ET

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California declared it “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.”

Shawn Hubler
June 23, 2022, 1:22 p.m. ET

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California tweeted that the Supreme Court decision marked “a dark day in America.” Gun rights advocates in the state celebrated the ruling and vowed to launch a barrage of court challenges to other California gun laws.

Glenn Thrush
June 23, 2022, 1:14 p.m. ET

Gun groups are applauding the decision as an important, hard-won victory. “The court has made clear that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not limited to the home,” said Larry Keane, a top official with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group. “The burden is on the government to justify restrictions, not on the individual to justify to the government a need to exercise their rights.”

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 1:07 p.m. ET

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, issued a fiery statement condemning the decision: “Congress is acting in a bicameral, bipartisan fashion to pass common-sense gun safety legislation. It is shameful that an extreme Supreme Court has decided to act as a political body to make our streets and communities less safe.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 1:06 p.m. ET

There is quite a juxtaposition on Capitol Hill: A majority of Republicans are cheering the Supreme Court ruling, with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas calling it a “vindication” and “an ever-present reminder of our duty as citizens to defend our constitutional rights from brazen attacks from the left.” But 15 Republicans, just hours after the ruling, helped break a filibuster over gun legislation for the first time in nearly three decades.

Glenn Thrush
June 23, 2022, 1:01 p.m. ET

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, predicted the New York decision would “spawn a great deal of litigation” by gun rights proponents seeking to overturn state and federal restrictions across the nation. Ms. Monaco, speaking after a meeting with law enforcement officials in Philadelphia, said she was “deeply disappointed” in the ruling.

Nicholas Fandos
June 23, 2022, 12:41 p.m. ET

The court’s decision spilled onto New York's campaign trail just days before primary voters decide their Democratic and Republican nominees for governor. As Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, called for a special legislative session, one of her leading primary opponents, Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, slammed the governor for accepting support from the National Rifle Association in a past campaign. “I would support anything making concealed carry as restrictive as possible while still meeting constitutional muster,” he said.

Troy Closson
June 23, 2022, 12:40 p.m. ET

Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman, 21, was shot in the May 14 massacre in Buffalo, said in an interview that she feared the decision would contribute to more gun violence. “What else has to happen before this country wakes up and understands that the people in this country don’t feel safe?" she said. "The government, the courts, the lawmakers — they are here to protect us, and I don’t feel protected.”

Image
Credit...Libby March for The New York Times

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Jonah Bromwich
June 23, 2022, 12:34 p.m. ET

Mayor Eric Adams calls on lawmakers to return to Albany to craft legislation to respond to the court's decision. Gov. Kathy Hochul has said that a special session will likely take place next month.

Jonah Bromwich
June 23, 2022, 12:32 p.m. ET

New York City’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, cautions New Yorkers that nothing has yet changed. “If you carry a gun illegally in New York City, you will be arrested,” she says.

Image
Credit...Dakota Santiago for The New York Times
Jonah Bromwich
June 23, 2022, 12:31 p.m. ET

Mayor Eric Adams is addressing the decision at New York's City Hall. He calls the decision “appalling” and says that his team will immediately get to work to protect New Yorkers.

Emily Cochrane
June 23, 2022, 12:22 p.m. ET

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York criticized the ruling, saying “it shows this is an activist court that is undermining precedent and undermining common-sense state laws that protect citizens and uphold public safety.”

Image
Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
June 23, 2022, 11:54 a.m. ET

Hochul prepares legislation after ‘shocking’ court decision.

Video
Video player loading
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said her team was preparing new legislation to counteract a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s law restricting the carrying of handguns.CreditCredit...Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

New York’s leaders pledged Thursday to pass legislation broadly restricting the carrying of handguns as soon as possible and blasted the United States Supreme Court for striking down a previous measure in a decision that will affect five other states and tens of millions of Americans.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would call a special legislative session as soon as July and outlined proposals that could let the state maintain some of the nation’s most restrictive gun laws. Democratic leaders in the Legislature promised to work with the governor.

Ms. Hochul was visibly angry at a Manhattan news conference where she was preparing to sign a school safety measure named for a teenager killed in the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. She called the Supreme Court’s decision “shocking, absolutely shocking” and said it would make New Yorkers less safe.

“We’re already dealing with a major gun violence crisis,” Ms. Hochul said. “We don’t need to add more fuel to this fire.”

Her comments came minutes after the publication of the Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, that declared unconstitutional a century-old law that gives officials in New York sweeping authority to decide who can carry weapons. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey, which have similar laws, will also be affected by the decision.

Justice Thomas made it clear that any law restricting the carrying of guns in New York City as a whole would be unacceptable to the court.

“Put simply,” he wrote, “there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a ‘sensitive place’ simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.”

The ruling did not affect states with “shall issue” laws. Those measures give less discretion to local officials to decide who can carry guns, but can still place significant restrictions on applicants. The distinction, made clear in a concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, may allow states where restrictions have broad support to redraw new rules.

In New York, Ms. Hochul convened a meeting with the mayors of New York’s six largest cities to discuss potential legislation. She said leaders were devising changes to laws that govern permitting, potentially requiring additional training. They also plan to identify so-called sensitive locations where guns would not be allowed. Ms. Hochul declined to expand on possible locations while lawmakers debate, but said she believed that subways should be among them.

The state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is already drafting rules to keep weapons off subways, trains and buses, Paige Graves, its general counsel, said in a statement.

Ms. Hochul added that she hoped to establish a system in which handguns would be barred in private businesses, unless proprietors formally allowed them.

Joseph Blocher, a Second Amendment expert at Duke University School of Law in North Carolina, said that some of those proposals could meet the specifications that the Supreme Court set in its ruling, but cautioned that hard questions would inevitably arise.

For example, he explained, officials might bar guns within 100 feet of a school or a government building, and such buffer zones could make a substantial part of a city off limits. But he said that whether those kinds of restrictions would pass muster with the courts was an open question.

New York’s law is not yet off the books. The case now goes back to a lower court — the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — which is expected to send it in turn to Federal District Court in New York, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in constitutional law and gun policy.

That court is likely to give New York a grace period, instead of striking the law down immediately, Mr. Winkler said.

“We have seen this happen in the past where the courts have given lawmakers some time so they can adopt a law,” he said. In this case, he added the alternative would be to “have everyone carry guns on the streets of New York.”

New York officials rushed to explain that the decision will not take effect immediately.

“Nothing changes today,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a City Hall news conference. He called the ruling “appalling” and said it could undermine efforts to increase safety. Gun trafficking from other states, much of it on the so-called Iron Pipeline of I-95, might no longer be necessary, he said.

“The Iron Pipeline is going to be the Van Wyck,” the mayor said, referring to the expressway that runs through Queens. “The guns are going to be purchased here.”

The city’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, warned that as long as the current law remains on the books, “If you carry a gun illegally in New York City, you will be arrested.”

New York has an array of regulations unaffected by the court’s decision. The SAFE Act, passed in 2013, bans assault-style weapons with military features, requires background checks for nearly all sales and transfers of ammunition and firearms and prohibits people convicted of certain offenses from possessing guns. A so-called red-flag law, enacted in 2019, allows officials to seek orders taking firearms away from people who they believe will engage in harmful conduct.

Some New Yorkers celebrated the court’s decision. Lee Zeldin and Andrew Giuliani, Republican candidates for governor, both applauded the ruling.

Mr. Zeldin, a congressman and the presumptive favorite for the nomination, called the decision a “defense of the constitutional rights of law-abiding New Yorkers who have been under attack for far too long.”

And Andrew Chernoff, the owner of Coliseum Gun Traders in Uniondale, Long Island, said it was “more than just a pro-gun decision.”

“It has a bigger message — and the bigger message is that you can’t twist and turn the Constitution to your liking,” said Mr. Chernoff, who has been in business since 1979.

Several public defender organizations in New York City also supported the ruling, saying that the law had previously been use to discriminate against minority clients.

“Over 90 percent of the people prosecuted for unlicensed gun possession in New York City are Black and brown,” a coalition of public defender groups said in a statement. “These are the people impacted by New York’s discriminatory gun licensing scheme, which has fueled the criminalization and incarceration of young New Yorkers of color.”

Their statement called on the Legislature to design gun regulations that would address violence without perpetuating discrimination.

But at a news conference across the street from City Hall, members of the legislature’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus said the decision will put their constituents and communities in danger.

“If, in fact, anyone and everyone can get a license to get a gun and ride on the subway, and in our parks, and in our movie theaters and at our concerts, we’re going to be in big trouble,” said Sen. Robert Jackson.

New York officials had already been struggling to combat gun crime. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of shootings resulting in injuries doubled in New York City. And the overall rate of shootings in 20 other areas, including Albany, Buffalo and Rochester rose sharply during that period, according to city and state data.

While criminologists disagree about what propels the rise in violence, many point to disruptions caused by the pandemic and the easy flow of guns to New York from states with looser restrictions.

Studies have shown that right-to-carry laws are associated with higher rates of violent crime. One study from the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2017 found that such laws were associated with as much as 15 percent “higher aggregate violent crime rates.”

Zellnor Myrie, a Democratic state senator from Brooklyn who is one of the Legislature’s leading voices on gun violence, said the court’s decision came as he attended an elementary school graduation across from the 36th Street subway station in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where 10 people were shot and dozens injured when a gunman opened fire aboard a train in April.

“I just think about the children I just saw graduate, who have to live in city, state or a country where the government chooses guns over their lives,” he said.

Dana Rubinstein, Hurubie Meko and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT