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Shoppers at SP Firearms Unlimited, in Long Island. In a ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court has undone the state’s Sullivan Act. |
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al. v. Bruen, the high-profile firearms case that the Supreme Court decided on Thursday, you don't need a legal degree to detect the irritation written into the views of the various justices. A particular New York State gun control statute was declared illegal by the Court in a 6-3 ruling. However, as Stephen Breyer notes in a dissent written by the Court's three liberal justices, the case's consequences are considerably more extensive. The issue at hand is whether or not the Second Amendment stops democratically elected authorities from passing legislation to address the grave issue of gun violence, according to Breyer. “ And yet, the Court makes an attempt to respond to that query today without addressing the type or scope of the issue. Breyer continues by listing some statistics. There are more firearms than people in the United States. Tens of thousands of people are murdered by firearms each year, and around 85,000 individuals have non-fatal injuries from gun-related accidents each year. While mass shootings have dominated the news, Breyer also draws attention to a sometimes ignored facet of the gun violence crisis: suicide. One percent of gun fatalities in America in 2015 were accidents, 37 percent were homicides, and the remaining deaths—the majority—were suicides.
"What significance do the data on the use of firearms in suicide have?" One of the six conservative justices who signed the majority opinion is Samuel Alito, who also wrote a concurring opinion. The relevant statute makes it more difficult in New York than in most other states to get a license to carry a firearm outside the home. Does the opposition believe that many persons with weapons in their houses will be prevented or discouraged from shooting themselves if they are unable to legally carry them outside? Rhetorical question from Alito.
Simply said, absolutely. It appears that something similar occurred in New York State. The Sullivan Act, a century-and-eleven-year-old New York statute that created the state's gun-permitting regulations, was examined in a study released in 2019 by Briggs Depew and Isaac D. Swensen from Utah State University and Montana State University. Despite the fact that the legislation "had no discernible influence on homicide or suicide rates," there was "clear evidence" that it had caused a significant decline in suicides with guns. Depew and Swensen discovered that the number of gun suicides in New York decreased by 32% to 48% when compared to mortality rates in other states before and after the Sullivan Act's enactment. Recent high-profile research has found significant associations between gun ownership rates and suicide rates. Since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012, Chris Murphy, a senator from Connecticut, has been one of Congress's most vocal proponents of gun control. He has stated that addressing the nation's suicide issue and enacting gun control measures are synonymous goals.
In the wake of a murder-suicide that shocked New York City, the Sullivan Act was implemented in 1911. A violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra called Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough murdered a novelist named David Graham Phillips outside the Princeton Club in January of that year because he thought Phillips had made fun of his family in one of his works. Goldsborough shot Phillips, who later died the next morning, then turned the pistol on himself. Big Tim Sullivan, a state senator and chairman of Tammany Hall, swiftly pushed through a provision that would soon serve as a template for gun control laws across the nation.
Two men in Rensselaer County, close to Albany, named Robert Nash and Brandon Koch filed the lawsuit New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al. v. Bruen to challenge a later amendment to the Sullivan Act that gives local officials some latitude in determining who is eligible for a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public. Both men had requested for permits to carry concealed weapons but had been rejected because local officials said neither had shown "sufficient reason" to require the permit for self-defense. The rulings of the municipal officials were accepted by the conservative justices who contributed to the majority decision, which was written by Clarence Thomas. According to Thomas, Nash "did not identify any special risk to his personal safety." “ Koch was in a similar situation as Nash, but the conservative majority continued to find in their favor despite the state's purported interests in restricting gun ownership.
Their decision forces the state to conform to the gun-rights narrative that conservative judges have been peddling since the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision and the 2009 McDonald v. Chicago decision. In his judgment for Bruen, Thomas states that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments "recognized that the right of an average, law-abiding individual to keep a firearm in the house for self-defense" in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. "We now believe, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that an individual's right to carry a pistol for self-defense outside the house is protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments." The conservative justices of the Supreme Court don't care about the repercussions of repealing the Sullivan Act. Simply put, New York will have to live with it.
Within minutes of the decision's announcement, Governor Kathy Hochul declared she would summon a special session of the state legislature, perhaps within the next two weeks, to address it. She described the decision as "shocking" and "frightful in its extent." In reaction to the racial mass shooting in Buffalo, Hochul just passed a package of new gun control regulations, raising the legal age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle from eighteen to twenty-one. In reaction to previous mass murders, New York was one of the few states to implement strict gun control laws; now, its legislators must come up with a substitute for the Sullivan Act. This will probably include designating public areas like schools and hospitals as "sensitive places" in which firearms are prohibited, even for individuals with licenses. A significant portion of the discussion will undoubtedly center on New York City, where shootings increased last year and where discussions about crime and violence have recently dominated the city's internal dialogue. Hochul responded, "In my perspective, they are," when asked on Thursday whether the subways in New York City would be considered "sensitive areas." When Big Tim presented the Sullivan Act more than a century ago, he had no idea what effects it would have. Who knows exactly what the law's current demise will signify for the coming century.
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