[guest post by JVW]

Gun control activist’s minds are about to explode:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that New York’s “proper-cause” requirement to obtain a concealed-carry license is unconstitutional as it violates ordinary citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

The Court voted 6-3 to strike down the New York law, which has been in place since 1913 and required that people show a special need to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun outside the home.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to carry a gun outside the home, adding that the state’s “proper cause” requirement “violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”

Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts which agreed that New York’s proper-cause requirement imposed an unreasonable burden, but they were careful to declare that states still reserved the right to impose licensing requirements for concealed carry, so long as those requirements are similar to those found in “shall-issue” states. This of course means that the Court will likely be hearing another case several years down the road in which a state like New York or California sets such rigid licensing requirements as to effectively deny permits to the vast majority of applicants. But for now, this ruling is a victory for the common-sense notion that a law-abiding citizen need not be facing some specific danger in order to exercise their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

– JVW