Gun Control Live Updates: Senate Bill and Supreme Court Ruling - The New York Times

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v?

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion of the court, a 6-3 ruling in which he was joined by Chief Justice John G.

“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.”.

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.”.

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.

The ruling came as the city continued to grapple with levels of gun violence far higher than the historic lows that preceded the pandemic.

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

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution limits state and local government in restricting guns outside the home.

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.

The Senate approved bipartisan legislation to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

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.

That expanded on the court’s 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v.

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.

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.

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.

In Hawaii, Alan Alexander Beck said his client, George Young, was “ecstatic” about the Supreme Court decision.

President Biden tells reporters that while he is disappointed about the Supreme Court ruling on guns, “there is one little bit of solace.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But the court ignored the magnitude of the violence itself, he said:.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The bill would crack down on “straw purchasers” or people who buy guns for those who would not qualify.

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.

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.

Wayne Jones, who lost his mother Celestine Chaney, 65, in the Buffalo massacre, said Thursday that he held mixed feelings about the decision.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”.

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.

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.

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.”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Archila, who gained national attention for confronting Senator Jeff Flake during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Brett M.

Zeldin will face the businessman Harry Wilson; Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W.

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.”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”.

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

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

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.”

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

This is a dangerous decision from a court hell bent on pushing a radical ideological agenda and infringing on the rights of states to protect our citizens from being gunned down in our streets, schools, and churches

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.”

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

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

Monaco, speaking after a meeting with law enforcement officials in Philadelphia, said she was “deeply disappointed” in the ruling

The court’s decision spilled onto New York's campaign trail just days before primary voters decide their Democratic and Republican nominees for governor

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

“If you carry a gun illegally in New York City, you will be arrested,” she says

Mayor Eric Adams is addressing the decision at New York's City Hall

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.”

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

She called the Supreme Court’s decision “shocking, absolutely shocking” and said it would make New Yorkers less safe

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

Some New Yorkers celebrated the court’s decision

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

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

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of shootings resulting in injuries doubled in New York City

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

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