The Supreme Court has struck down a gun law in New York requiring gun owners to have a “proper cause” to carry a gun outside their homes.
On Thursday, the conservative majority Supreme Court overturned a gun law, stating that it violates the Second Amendment.
The law meant applicants for a license to conceal and carry would have to have a “proper cause” to do so.
The 6-3 ruling is being heralded as a major victory for gun rights advocates and is considered the biggest expansion of gun rights in over a decade.
The law, which has been in existence since 1911, came into question after the recent shooting in a Buffalo supermarket that killed 10 Black people reignited the national debate about U.S. gun laws.
The Supreme Court’s 6 conservative judges voted to invalidate the law yesterday and the three liberal judges voted to uphold the law.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion in the case, said the law violated the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which states citizens have a right to equal protection under the law because it “prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms”.
President Joe Bideo said he was “deeply disappointed” by the ruling which he also said, “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”
It’s now expected that similar laws in other states could receive the same kind of scrutiny.