NYC Officials React to Supreme Court’s Decision to Overrule Gun Law

By: Ilana Siyance

The Supreme Court’s ruling against a 1913 law may lead to a “surge” of guns on New York City Streets, warned a top NYPD official.

On Thursday, Federal Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Brett Kavanaugh announced the decision to overrule the century-old Sullivan Act, which had required New Yorkers to show “proper cause” in order to get a license to carry a gun.

As per the NY Post, NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller criticized the decision to strike down the law, predicting that it will allow more “criminals” to carry guns, turning NYC into the “Wild East”.  In an interview on Sunday, Miller said on ‘The Cats Roundtable’ on WABC 770: “The worry here is that they’re going to make this the wild, wild East.”

A lawsuit had been filed in Fall 2021, by two upstate men as well as The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, challenging the gun law and saying that it violates their second Amendment right to bear arms.  The Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,” Justice Thomas wrote on Thursday. The 6-3 decision by the court’s conservative majority, will allow people to carry a concealed weapon in public, expanding gun rights nationwide, even as the nation is still reeling from several recent mass shootings.

“Shocking, absolutely shocking that they have taken away our right to have reasonable restrictions,” NY Gov. Kathy Hochul commented on the ruling. “We can have restrictions on speech. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but somehow there is not restrictions allowed on the Second Amendment?”  Mayor Eric Adams also commented, saying the ruling “opened an additional river feeding the sea of gun violence, but we will do everything we can to dam it.”

The NY City Council has already said that it will seek to push state lawmakers to dramatically expand the state’s current list of “sensitive locations”, where guns will be banned—potentially including government buildings, schools, hospitals, places of worship, parks, daycares and cemeteries.  “We are formally and proactively presenting this idea to the state legislature because the threat to New York City is so very serious,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams.

“I am concerned that the Supreme Court has now taken the biggest step it has ever taken to expand gun rights by extending to every American the right to carry a concealed gun anywhere, anytime, anywhere,” New York City’s Citizens Crime Commission President Richard Aborn said on John Catsimatidis’ Sunday morning radio show. “It will not be conducive to public safety.”

“It makes the work of the NYPD and police departments across the country much more dangerous,” added the head of the nonprofit. “It takes countless small interactions we have in cities every day and turns them into the potential for deadly encounters.”