The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling Thursday on gun rights boils down to this: The Second Amendment doesn’t disappear when you walk out your front door. Stated that way, it sounds obvious, but many appeals judges have disagreed. For a frustrating decade, the Supreme Court was too gun-shy to set them straight, but Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion was worth the wait.
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New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen challenged the Empire State’s regulations on carrying a firearm in public. Open carry in New York is banned. With certain exceptions, such as for judges, getting a permit to carry a handgun that’s concealed requires demonstrating “proper cause.” That has been interpreted to mean “a special need” for self-defense, beyond that of “the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”
