Editorial: Protecting New Yorkers from guns -- A big court win for safety

When the U.S. Supreme Court oh, so wrongly somehow saw fit to strike down a century-old law covering gun licensing in New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature quickly enacted a replacement two years ago, the Concealed Carry Improvement Act.

The gun lobby promptly went to federal court and sued and sued and sued and sued and state Attorney General Tish James defended the law each time. A federal appeals panel in Manhattan took up the four cases and issued an unanimous 261-page decision by Judges Dennis Jacobs, Gerard Lynch and Eunice Lee that came down on Dec. 8, 2023. The appeals court mostly kept the law in place, including a ban on concealed carry in sensitive places and a requirement to demonstrate good moral character for a permit application.

That should have been the end. But it wasn’t, as the gun lobby opposes almost all gun laws.

After the Supremes issued another gun ruling, the high court in June asked the appeals court in New York to take another look at the law and their 2023 decision. So Jacobs, Lynch and Lee went back to work for four months and on Thursday produced a new 246-page decision, again coming down in support of the state’s law.

So now, once again the courts say the Concealed Carry Improvement Act is constitutional, which is important because we actually do need to be focused on ways to control the scourge of guns, ways that actually work. The prohibition of concealed firearms in sensitive locations like schools and government buildings and public parks makes sense and the appeals panel agrees. This is really the bare minimum to ensure that our city remains safe.

The whole back-and-forth started when the Supreme Court rejected New York’s 1911 gun law, an action itself which was just another plank in a long-running process to redefine what the right to bear arms means in the Constitution, which really got underway as the high court threw out decades of precedent and the first half of the Second Amendment out and dreamed up an individual and practically unabridged right to private firearms.

The Concealed Carry Improvement Act, now sustained twice on appeal, may still soon enough appear before on the Supreme Court’s docket.

Hunters and target shooters and collectors have certain rights to possess guns, as do those who seek a firearm for personal protection. But those dangerous and deadly instruments need to be regulated to keep others safe. Written in 1789, the first few words of the Second Amendment say: “well regulated.”

The gun lobby wants no regulation and no limits and fights every effort to protect the public from firearms.

Society has sound reasons to deny legal guns to people with criminal records, mental disorders and court orders of protection against them. Such a person with a gun then has an illegal gun, concealed or not. Under the New York law, private property owners can now prohibit legal firearms, be it concealed or not, on their property, as it should be.

Not just gun owners have rights, the rest of us do as well. Even the Supreme Court can’t disagree with that.

_____