New York to restrict gun carrying after Supreme Court ruling

New York: Amid the bright lights and electronic billboards of New York’s Times Square, city authorities are posting signs proclaiming the bustling crossroads a “Gun Free Zone”.

The sprawling Manhattan tourist attraction is one of scores of “sensitive” places — including parks, churches and theatres — that will be off-limits for guns under a sweeping new state law going into effect Thursday.

The measure, passed after a US Supreme Court decision in June expanded gun rights, also sets stringent standards for issuing concealed carry permits.

New York is among a half-dozen states that had key provisions of its gun laws invalidated by the high court because of a requirement for applicants to prove they had “proper cause” for a permit.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Friday that she and her fellow Democrats in the state Legislature took action the next week because the ruling “destroyed the ability for a governor to be able to protect her citizens from people who carry concealed weapons anywhere they choose”.

However, the law has led to confusion and court challenges from gun owners who say it improperly limits their constitutional rights.

“They seem to be designed less towards addressing gun violence and more towards simply preventing people from getting guns — even if those people are law-abiding, upstanding citizens, who according to the Supreme Court have the rights to have them,” said Jonathan Corbett, a Brooklyn attorney and permit applicant who is one of several people challenging the law in court.

A federal judge let the new rules go forward on Wednesday evening, hours before they were to take effect.

Despite writing that the arguments for granting a preliminary injunction to stop the rules were persuasive, Judge Glenn Suddaby said the plaintiffs — an upstate New York resident and



three gun rights organisations — didn’t have standing to bring the legal action.

Suddaby said he came to that decision partly because the man, a legal gun owner, couldn’t demonstrate he was at risk of a credible threat of prosecution under the new guidelines, among other factors.

In a tweet, New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling a major victory “against baseless attacks by the gun lobby”.

In an emailed statement, Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, one of groups that filed the challenge, said Suddaby’s opinion “contains a silver lining for New Yorkers and the nation,” and said his group would continue to fight “against clear violations of the Second Amendment”.

Under the law, applicants for a concealed carry permit will have to complete 16 hours of classroom training and two hours of live-fire exercises.

Ordinary citizens would be prohibited from bringing guns to schools, churches, subways, theatres and amusement parks — among other places deemed “sensitive” by authorities.

Applicants also will have to provide a list of social media accounts for the past three years as part of a “character and conduct” review.

The requirement was added because shooters have sometimes dropped hints of violence online before they opened fire on people.

Sheriffs in some upstate counties said the additional work for their investigators could add to existing backlogs in processing applications.

In Rochester, Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter said it currently takes two to four hours to perform a pistol permit background check on a “clean” candidate.

He estimate the new law will add another one to three hours for each permit. The county has about 600 pending pistol permits.