Thursday Morning Politics: SCOTUS's Opinion on NYS's Concealed Carry Law

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To repeat the breaking news just in in the last few minutes from the Supreme Court, quoting from the court watching website SCOTUSblog, "The court holds that New York's proper cause requirement to obtain a concealed carry license violates the constitution 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." It was a 6-3 decision written by Justice Thomas.

We'll do a few different segments on this. Later in the show, we'll do one that focuses closely on the language in the ruling and in the dissents. We have Emily Bazelon, Supreme Court watcher for the New York Times reading the decision right now. She's going to come on in a little while and give us a close Yale Law Professor as well as New York Times Magazine correspondent, her read on it. That's coming up from Emily.

With us now is Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The Nation Magazine. We'll get her take on that. Also some other news from DC, President Biden yesterday proposed a three-month suspension of the federal tax on gasoline, something that seems to be landing with a thud on both sides of the aisle in Congress but for different reasons. Not landing with a thud for once on the Republican side is the new compromise gun control bill that a bipartisan group of senators has negotiated.

I wonder if this ruling will have any impact on that. We'll also talk about inflation versus recession, if those are the only choices after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Senate testimony yesterday engaged on that question. Joan has been covering the January 6th select committee hearings which do resume this afternoon as the country digests the powerful stories we've been hearing mostly from otherwise pro-Trump Republicans so far.

We'll see how much of this we can get to. Hi, Joan, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Joan Walsh: Hi, Brian. Hi, thanks for having me. Great to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a first blush reaction to what we know so far about this ruling on concealed carry?

Joan Walsh: I think it's devastating. I can't wait. I'll be listening to Emily Bazelon when she was comes on because she's smarter than I am, obviously, about this stuff but at a time when we're all looking for answers to this curse of gun violence. Even we've got some Republicans participating in the wake of the Uvalde and Buffalo massacres. We get this gut punch and it's really interesting. Justice Thomas basically uses not just the Second Amendment, but the 14th Amendment.

He's really making a case that carrying a gun is one of the core liberties, one of the core elements of being an American, basically. You don't need special circumstances, you shouldn't have to have special circumstances to get a concealed carry license. You should just be able to get one under any circumstance, pretty much. That's pretty shocking and pretty extreme.

Brian Lehrer: I guess it suggests-- and I'm going to be interested in seeing the exact language on this, that you need to be ready to defend yourself at a moment's notice with a gun on the streets, not just in your own home. I'm going to be curious to see how Justice Thomas who wrote the opinion or any of the concurring justices argue that that's really a necessity in public.

I wonder if they even get to the overall public safety risk versus benefits, presumed risks versus benefits of having a more armed public because we know there's not a clear line all the time between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun. A good guy most of the time might go off for some reason or another or might shoot somebody accidentally, or might be trying to intervene in something and shoots bystanders because they're not trained, any of those things.

Joan Walsh: All of those things. I just think, given the crime that we're seeing currently, the idea that my fellow passengers on the subway, for example, are standing on a platform, even a good guy or good girl with a gun, that does not make me feel safer. Quite the opposite. Especially in dense cities, the potential for real carnage escalates and it's just unthinkable to me. I haven't read it.

Brian, like you, I've been scanning SCOTUSblog as we all do but I haven't seen what the dissent when it came down on this pathetic, classic 6-3 margin with the three justices appointed by Democrats dissenting. I haven't read the dissent.

Brian Lehrer: Let me jump in because we're getting a live reaction now from Governor Hochul and we're going to listen in for a minute or two. No?

Joan Walsh: Great.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, no. Oh, okay. I guess that's going to happen.

Joan Walsh: Not great.

Brian Lehrer: Great in theory, not in practice until it actually happens which is usually a prerequisite to putting it on the air.

Joan Walsh: I think so.

Brian Lehrer: I will read from article an anticipation of this that we had on our local news website Gothamist by Herb Pinder, our race and justice editor, and our reporter Arun Venugopal. It quotes a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland, Robert Spitzer, who said in the first part of this, I guess, is from Captain Obvious if that New York law is swept away, it means a lot more gun carrying presumably even in the five boroughs of New York City.

The article says the decision is especially relevant in New York City where officials have long credited strict gun laws as key to maintaining order as well as the city status as among the nation's safest biggest cities, notwithstanding recent violence. Prof. Spitzer is quoted-- and I'm looking for this other quote of his. Spitzer noted that several of the justices when they did the oral arguments on this, expressed sympathy for the view that gun carrying by civilians is a good way to protect themselves.

That seems to be the basis of Justice Thomas's decision from what we know so far. At least in Prof. Spitzer's view, he says what it means instead is the opposite. That is, when more civilians are carrying guns, it means more gun accidents, it means more guns being stolen. That means guns being used to commit suicide, it means guns falling into the wrong hands one way or another, whether it's a child or a despondent teenager.

Well, that argument, obviously did not carry the day at the Supreme Court but I think that lays out pretty well what the opponents of this are concerned about.

Joan Walsh: Yes, it really does and it's devastating because we know the role of guns in suicide, for example. At a time when, as we are dealing with a rise in gun crime and particularly in certain neighborhoods and we're trying to figure out how to get the guns out of the hands of teenagers, et cetera, now we're putting more guns in more hands. Again, right, they get stolen, they get lost, they get misused, they get traded.

It's going against everything we've been striving for. I've been thinking about this a lot. We don't have the Dobbs decision, so we don't exactly know what's going to happen to abortion rights but we're pretty sure. We live on a blue island, Brian, and yet, we have a Supreme Court that is pretty devoted to encroaching on laws that New Yorkers like, the people we voted for are passing these laws.

If we don't like them, we can vote for other people but we have a legislature that has done some great things around limiting gun access, but now, no, they can't do that. Supposedly, whatever decision comes down in Dobbs will leave New York abortion law alone but could conceivably allow other states to come after women who travel to New York. We don't know and the liberties we've taken for granted, if we live in a place like New York or California, are really being eroded by this court. It's a very scary prospect.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can react to this if you want at 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. I'm going to read a little from The Gothamist article that was anticipating this ruling with some really interesting background on the history of the New York gun law in question that a lot of people don't know. It says the case has its roots in gun law, more than a century old, and in connected issues still unresolved.

In New York, the 1911 Sullivan law "required permits to own or carry handguns" and was one of several laws passed across the nation in response to "concerns about organized labor, the huge number of immigrants and race riots in which now," I'm sorry. I got a little lost in all my papers here, "and race riots," this is quoting from 1911, "in which blacks defended themselves with firearms," wrote University of Denver legal scholar, David B. Capelle looking back on this law.

Then it quotes the New York Times article from August 30th, 1911. Joan, you ready for a New York Times quote from 1911? It says down-

Joan Walsh: I sure am.

Brian Lehrer: "Down on the Bowery and on the avenues on the east and west sides, revolver sold like hotcakes yesterday, and about as cheap. Low-browed foreigners," oh my goodness. "Low-browed foreigners," The Times called them, "bargained for weapons of every description and gloated over their good fortune in hearing of the drop in the gun market," I guess cheaper prices, "before it was too late. That is before the Sullivan dangerous weapon law goes into effect on Friday."

Then this University of Denver law professor, Capelle adds, "Fear of Bolshevism and similar revolutionary movements also led to more state and local gun controls." Further restrictions were imposed in the 1960s, the article says in response to race riots across the US and the growth of the Black Panther Party whose members openly carried weapons.

Talk about scrambling our minds on which side of what different laws and different oppositions to laws come from.

That's pretty interesting, the 1911 and then, next few decades context for the origins of this law.

Joan Walsh: It really is. I didn't know about the Sullivan law, the 1911 stuff, but I certainly knew about Ronald Reagan signing gun control legislation, partly because the Black Panthers marched through the State Capitol in Sacramento openly carrying. I guess we need more low-browed foreigners and Black Panthers carrying guns and then maybe we'll get some gun control. I don't know.

Brian Lehrer: I guess so. There's pieces of Ronald Reagan's history that comes to mind when he was governor of California, and the Black Panthers were in their heyday. That was one of the reasons that is believed that Ronald Reagan, as governor of California before he became president, advocated gun control laws at that time in that state. All right, folks, Governor Hochul is making a statement and holding a news conference on this ruling from the Supreme Court.

It started a few minutes. We're tape-delaying it, we're going to roll it now from the top.

Governor Hochul: We do not need people entering, our subways, our restaurants, our movie theaters with concealed weapons. We don't need more guns on our streets. We're already dealing with a major gun violence crisis. We don't need to add more fuel to-

Brian Lehrer: All right, that's what we have right now as it turns out. That's a statement from Governor Hochul and I guess the three gubernatorial candidates, we heard Tom Suozzi before on the Democratic primary side. Joan, turning to local politics on this, they're all going to agree on this one.

Joan Walsh: Yes. I listened to your interview with Tom Souzzi, it was great. Yes, that's reassuring. That's not an area of dispute in the Democratic primary. That's good. I also saw a quote from Governor Hochul saying we're not powerless, but I did not see a follow-up. I'm not criticizing her. I literally just didn't see it in terms of what she thinks the legislature has the power to do based on this. I'm not sure anybody completely knows yet.

Even the smartest minds probably can't digest this decision and the dissents so quickly as to say what New York might be able to do within the confines of this ruling so I'm not going to try to speculate. She probably didn't either but I know that all three Democrats are going to be aggressive and Democrats in the legislature are going to be aggressive in trying to figure out how to respond to this and how to craft something that is effective, that has teeth but also lives with this Supreme Court.

Brian Lehrer: Yes and when I asked Congressman Suozzi last half hour, he gave an answer similar to what Governor Hochul has been saying about wanting to be able to read the text of the decision first, and then they can craft a specific law in response that they hope would accomplish the goal of making it harder, once again, to carry guns in public in New York but within the confines of this ruling that's coming down today, but I get it from both of them.

They want to read the text first and then they'll talk about what might be in this law. I think the governor has said, as the Congressman suggested, and he acknowledged that she has said I think she will call a special session of the legislature this summer on that. The New York State Legislature's year typically ends in June, so they're done until January under normal circumstances. I think we're going to see a special session of the legislature on this.

Joan Walsh: Yes, she has said that. I look forward to that.

Brian Lehrer: Let's got a couple of callers on the air. People are calling with various points of view. Peter in Syosset, you're on WNYC. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Yes. Good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I think your guest hinted at it before but in thinking about the decision as you were describing it, and what it meant having more people walking around with guns in the city, what occurred to me was that it ended up having increased numbers of muggings for the purpose of getting a hold of guns without having to go through any sort of registration process or whatever might be acceptable to this extremist Supreme Court.

It's just another avenue of distributing guns completely out of control. That's what occurred to me.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you very much. With a different point of view. I think, Michael in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Michael: Hello. Yes. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you agree with a previous caller but go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. You can definitely make your point.

Michael: Yes, in the early 1980s, I saved a female neighbor. I got her away from her would-be rapist. I did that without a gun. In the early 2000s, I was robbed at gunpoint in Times Square in the middle of the day, crowded Times Square. The robber was clearly developmentally challenged. He was short he was fat. If it hadn't been a gun, I would have left, if it had been a knife I would have disarmed him but it was a gun so I handed over my camera bag.

If I'd had a gun, and I drew it out, and we started blasting away, who knows what might have happened as a result, crowded Times Square. As it was he was arrested that night. I got everything back and he went upstate for a very long time. He might still be up there. This was not his first gun robbery charge so I do not see how flooding the streets with guns is going to make us any safer. That's my comment.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much. Here, I think in support of this ruling Scott in Soho, you're on WNYC. Hi Scott.

Scott: Yes. Hey, how you doing? I just think the people that are going to go register and get a carry handgun, if it's anybody that-- I guess, New Yorkers don't understand it living in New York City. If you grew up in the country or in the Midwest, you're really gun-safe all the time. You're arguing against pretty much most good people would follow the laws and get a gun permit and then get something to carry.

It seems like you're more upset about that than what happens right now, which is criminals carrying guns, they don't follow the law and the abuse the people that live in their neighborhoods. I mean, you don't live in a bad neighborhood. Your guest doesn't live in a bad neighborhood. I don't live in a bad neighborhood but a lot of poor people have to deal with criminals and they have no way to defend themselves.

You're saying, "Call the cops," but you support defunding the police. What are they supposed to do? It's pretty hypocritical and the other thing you brought up is, in some ways, you want states to make decisions. Like the gun laws like New York because you don't agree with the federal ruling, but then on abortion, you're totally against that and want the federal government to mandate across the land. I'm just curious how you switch so many ways to justify just what you want.

Brian Lehrer: Scott, thank you. I haven't been-

Joan Walsh: May I jump in?

Brian Lehrer: I haven't been-- Sure Joan, go ahead.

Joan Walsh: I don't know how Scott knows where I live. I don't live in a bad neighborhood, but I do live in Harlem. We are having problems with guns. Brian and I both spoke about-- started out by speaking about the crisis of gun violence, both in our city and across the country. The notion that we are just really not bothered at all by the criminals with guns is actually pretty unfair. Scott, let's try not to create straw men or straw women when we're arguing about this because you totally misrepresented my position.

Brian Lehrer: It's probably fair to Scott's point to say that the different sides support states' rights when it's in support of a policy that they support and they oppose state's rights when it isn't so he pointed up some examples, maybe that goes on on both sides, Joan.

Joan Walsh: It probably does, but it's not entirely opportunistic, Brian. I think that liberals especially believe that certain rights should be guaranteed by the federal government. For example, it's about to change I think, but the right to abortion and the right to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, deciding when and whether to have a family, all of those private issues are matters that should be-- are matters of dignity really. That should be guaranteed by the federal government.

We would like to see more federal involvement in protecting voting rights because we think that the vote is also a matter of a fundamental right of all citizens and should not be subject to the whims of Texas or Wisconsin or Georgia. You can say it's merely opportunistic and I'm sure sometimes it is. Politics is politics and it's not always completely full of integrity, but I think there are actual legal arguments to be made on these issues that are not merely a matter of expedience all the time.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org coming up on 11:02. In a couple of minutes, we'll go to Michael Hill in the newsroom, who's been doing the first read on this decision and will have a few more details.

Again, for those of you just joining us, we've been talking with Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The Nation mostly about this breaking news from the Supreme court this morning that they have overturned a New York state gun law. I will quote from the SCOTUSblog, which watches the Supreme court.

For those of you just tuning in, "The court holds that New York's proper cause requirement to obtain a concealed carry license violates the constitution 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." The key part of that is in public. I guess Joan, we'll ask Emily Bazelon, Yale law professor in New York Times Magazine correspondent later in the show, as she's reading all the language in this decision.

If this automatically means that everybody with a gun license in New York state right now, and the vast majority of those gun licenses only allow them to keep them in their homes or in some cases in their place of business, automatically they can walk around on the street with the gun now, poof. I don't know if that's exactly what it means, but it looks like it might. Esteban-

Joan Walsh: I can't tell either.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Joan Walsh: I don't know if there's an additional-- I don't think that poof they can [laughs] they're out on the street today. It read a little bit to me like there's another-- you still need to get a license, but it's easier to get a license, but I could be wrong. I don't know the answer to that. Maybe that's-

Brian Lehrer: Well see. Let me get one more caller on who might be a response to the previous caller. Esteban in sunset park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Esteban.

Esteban: How's it going, Brian? Thanks for having me. I got to tell you, that guy that just spoke really got on my nerves because I think about it like as a Puerto Rican who lives in the city, if I was carrying a gun, I think what would my interaction be with police? If they saw me carrying a gun, also if I was black, if they saw me carrying a gun, they might get scared. They might shoot me. That's what happened to Philando Castile.

He was a licensed gun owner, but he was murdered by the police because he had a gun in his car. That's going to happen again here in New York City. We're going to have another Philando Castile moment right here. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Esteban, thank you for your call. The police side of that was that though he informed them that he was a licensed gun owner and had a gun in his car, the police say they perceived him as reaching for the gun, but yes, that tragedy of the Philando Castile case and the things that can happen more likely as the caller points out to people who are Black or brown if they are in an encounter with the police even if they have a licensed firearm and tell that to the police officers proactively.

Joan, thank you for joining us. I know we were going to talk about all kinds of other things and then came this breaking news which took over the segment.

Joan Walsh: It's okay. It's important.

Brian Lehrer: I look forward to your other appearances in the future when who knows what we'll talk about then.

Joan Walsh: [laughs] I look forward to that too. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The Nation.

 

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