Supreme Court Upholds Strict Gun Laws

The state of New York has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. They require a background check on people wanting to buy guns, have banned the sale of assault weapons & high-capacity magazines, and make it very difficult to legally carry a weapon outside the home. And they recently just toughened those laws.

Those are all things the NRA leadership would have us believe are violations of the Second Amendment. And the NRA (and the Second Amendment Foundation) recently supported a group of Westchester County residents who opposed the strict controls on guns in New York. These people especially wanted to be able to carry a gun in public, and hoped the Supreme Court would strike down New York's tough concealed-carry law.

The gun lovers had already lost their fight in the lower courts, all of whom upheld the New York laws. Yesterday, they lost again, when the United States Supreme Court refused to even hear their case -- thus ending the debate over the constitutionality of New York's tough gun laws.

This should not come as any surprise. While the Supreme Court has upheld the right of Americans to own a firearm, it has also upheld the right of cities and states to place restrictions on who can own a gun, what kind of firearm they can own, and where (and under what circumstances) their guns can be carried. Even ultra-right-wing Justice Scalia has verified that gun restrictions are constitutional.

Of course this won't stop the congressional Republicans as they try to defeat any new restrictions on guns at all. They will ignore this Supreme Court action, just like they have ignored those in the past, and continue to whine that background checks for gun buyers and banning of assault weapons are a violation of the Second Amendment. It's an argument that will appeal to their right-wing base, but has utterly no legal (or constitutional) standing.