New York Responds to SCOTUS
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul cruised to victory in the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial primary last week, and then pushed legislators to overhaul the state’s gun laws and start the process of amending the state Constitution to cement the right to an abortion in an extraordinary session called in response to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
As I reported in The Wall Street Journal, lawmakers approved an Equality Amendment that would prohibit governmental discrimination against people based on a number of categories. That list includes pregnancy outcome, as well as ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression.
California lawmakers last week scheduled a November vote on a constitutional amendment adding a “fundamental right to choose to have an abortion.” In New York, a constitutional amendment must be approved again by the Legislature before it’s put up for a popular referendum — in either 2023 or 2024.
The gun bill requires concealed-weapon applicants to undergo in-person training and have “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself or others.” Applicants must also disclose former and current social-media accounts used during the past three years.
New York will also prohibit the possession of weapons in a list of “sensitive places,” which include parks, day-care centers, government buildings and Manhattan’s Times Square. Possession of a handgun in a private business would be banned unless the business expressly allowed people to carry. Active-duty military and law enforcement personnel, as well as retired police officers, are exempted from the restrictions.
“The Supreme Court, less than a week ago, turned our world upside down,” Hochul said Wednesday.
It's the first law to directly respond to the recent court ruling, and it passed along party lines. Democrat who supported it said the new standard set by the Supreme Court would lead to a proliferation of handguns and conditions akin to the “wild west.” Republicans said the measure unfairly burdens lawful gun owners, and could reduce public safety if there are fewer “good guys with a gun” in public spaces.
This is likely to end up in court, according to legal observers and several lawmakers. The Supreme Court ruled New York’s law requiring that applicants justify their need for a concealed-weapons permit was unconstitutional since the Second and Fourteenth Amendments “protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
“We consider everything they’ve done here to be unconstitutional,” Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, told CNHI. Or, as Republican Sen. Andrew Lanza said on the floor, “This is a disgrace — see you in the courts.”
THE QUESTION: Which U.S. president proclaimed, in a rousing July 4 speech, that, “We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests.”
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin won the GOP gubernatorial primary. Andrew Giuliani came in second, Rob Astorino in third and Harry Wilson in fourth.