What does the Supreme Court’s decision mean for New York’s gun law?

The Supreme Court has ruled that New York’s law governing the carrying of handguns is unconstitutional, but the law has yet to be struck down.

The case will now go to a lower court – the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – which is expected to return it to the federal district court in New York, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the ‘University of California. , Los Angeles, specializing in constitutional law and gun policy.

This court is likely to grant New York officials a grace period, instead of striking down the law immediately, Winkler said.

“We’ve seen this happen in the past when the courts gave lawmakers time to pass a law,” he said. In this case, he added that the alternative would be to “get everyone carrying guns on the streets of New York.”

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

New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell warned New Yorkers that nothing has changed yet and warned, “If you carry a gun illegally in New York, you will be arrested.

In six other states, laws governing the public carry of handguns, which are similar to those in New York, 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.

These laws will not be allowed to ban the carrying of handguns in entire cities. But some “sensitive places” will almost certainly be subject to restrictions, such as schools, government buildings and polling stations. And cities and states are likely to be inventive in designating places as sensitive.

Joseph Blocher, a Second Amendment expert at Duke University School of Law, said tough questions would arise when such hotspots are densely concentrated.

He explained that authorities could eventually ban the carrying of weapons within 100 feet of a school or government building, and that adding such buffer zones could result in a significant portion of a city be banned from the concealed carry of handguns. . But he said whether such restrictions would be accepted by the courts was “an open question”.