Hochul Pledges New Legislation After ‘Shocking’
Court Decision on Guns
June 23,
2022, 11:54 a.m. ETJune 23, 2022
June 23,
2022
Jonah E.
Bromwich, Ashley Southall and Grace Ashford
N.Y. Governor Slams Supreme Court Ruling on Guns as
‘Reprehensible’
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.
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.
Sign up for
the New York Today Newsletter Each
morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and
more. Get it sent to your inbox.
“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. Republican candidates for governor Lee
Zeldin and Andrew Giuliani 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.
Jonah E.
Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan
district attorney's office, state criminal courts in Manhattan and New York City's
jails. @jonesieman
Ashley
Southall is a law enforcement reporter focused on crime and policing in New
York City. @AshleyatTimes
Grace
Ashford is a reporter on the Metro desk covering New York State politics and
government from the Albany bureau. She previously worked on the Investigations
team. @gr_ashford
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário