Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
As predicted, the Left is losing its mind over the Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case challenging New York’s restrictive “may-issue” concealed carry licensing laws. One common theme is emerging in the hours after the Court’s decision was made public: it’s horrible timing on the part of the justices to decide to hear the case, what with all the violence we’ve had lately.
Over at Jezebel, writer Ashley Reese is fretting that the Court could make it “easier to carry a gun” at a time when we’ve seen several recent mass shooting, none of which were committed by individuals with concealed carry licenses.
The timing couldn’t be more ghoulish. The United States has seen a spike in mass shootings in 2021, averaging more than one mass shooting each day. Indianapolis is still recovering from the mass shooting at a FedEx facility on April 16, in which a gunman shot and killed eight people. Most Americans favor stricter gun control laws, but conservatives are salivating over the prospect of making their flawed fantasy a reality: More so-called “good guys” with guns, ready and willing to stop the “bad guys.”
NYSPRA v. Corlett is about the right of self-defense; you know, the right to protect yourself with a firearm in case one of these maniacal killers shows up where you are. It’s not “ghoulish” for the Court to take up the issue now. I’d argue it’s timely, and not because we’ve supposedly had a mass murder per day (hint: we haven’t). Violent crime is up, however, and we’ve seen record numbers of gun sales over the past year, along with hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking a concealed carry license so they can lawfully protect themselves in public.
In New York, however, your right to carry is considered a privilege, and folks can be denied even if they’ve gone through all the required training and are legal gun owners if the issuing authority doesn’t think they’ve shown a good reason to carry. A general right of self-defense isn’t sufficient in New York, which means the average citizen’s right to bear arms is non-existent.
Over at Vox, writer Ian Millhiser is bemoaning the Court’s acceptance of the case, warning that “the future of gun control in the United States could be quite grim — and Corlett could mark the moment when lawmakers’ power to fight gun violence falls apart.”
Well, no. Even if the Court holds that there is a general right of citizens to carry a firearm for self-defense, gun control activists aren’t going to go away. They’ll still try to ban modern sporting rifles and “large capacity” magazines, impose restrictive training requirements, ammunition controls, and other infringements on our Second Amendment rights… not to mention trying to pack the Court with anti-gun justices who’ll undo any positive decisions dealing with our right to keep and bear arms.
It would, however, be a strong signal to anti-gun activists and politicians that trying to ban and arrest our way to safety is a lost cause in a country that recognizes the right to both own and carry a firearm for self-defense. I’d like to think that it would encourage a few voices on the Left to work on actual violence prevention strategies instead of pretending that “gun violence prevention” is just another synonym for gun control.
The fact that anti-gun advocates like Millhiser are describing the Court’s decision to accept NYSPRA v. Corlett in such apocalyptic terms is telling, as is the silence from gun control organizations on their social media in the hours after the SCOTUS announcement. As of the time of publication, the only major gun control group to weigh in on Twitter has been Brady.
That’s a fairly lame response, which doesn’t even explain to their supporters what the case involves. Still, it’s more than what we’ve seen from the likes of Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, and Giffords. I’m guessing all of those groups are strategizing on their response to the SCOTUS announcement, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that these anti-gun groups may not want to talk too much about this case. After all, if they keep stressing that the New York laws should be kept on the books, they’re eventually going to have to explain to their allies in the “defund police” movement why they’re fully in support of letting “racist cops” decide who’s worthy of a carry permit instead of ensuring equal access to the right to bear arms under the law.