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Abstract
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In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that the Second Amendment provides a constitutionally protected right to carry firearms in public. The decision is already creating turmoil in the form of political and public backlash and a scramble by policymakers to find new ways to combat the growing gun-violence epidemic in the United States. The majority opinion in Bruen, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, will have a devastating impact on efforts to mitigate gun violence and address racial disparities, but the reasoning used in the decision could cause even more havoc moving forward.
In Bruen, the Supreme Court struck down a 1913 New York law requiring persons seeking a permit to carry guns in public to show they had a specific need for doing so. To meet this "proper cause" requirement, an applicant had to provide more justification than a general desire to have a weapon in case a need for self-defense arose. Often referred to as a "may issue" licensing regime -- which was present in five other states and the District of Columbia, collectively covering approximately 80 million people -- this type of law gave local law enforcement some discretion to determine whether there was sufficient reason for issuing a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
In striking down the law, the Court paid no attention to escalating gun homicides -- which have reached rates this country has not seen in decades -- or to the fact that the law was New York's attempt to balance protection of Second Amendment rights with public safety. Although the Court could have ruled that the law was being enforced too strictly, it instead invalidated the law entirely, on the basis of its radically expanded interpretation of the Second Amendment, while giving no weight to the state's interest in reducing the number of firearms in the public sphere. Ultimately, all that mattered was the right of "law-abiding citizens" -- an ambiguous term not further defined -- to decide they wanted to carry a gun to protect themselves.
Declaring may-issue regimes invalid and creating a constitutional right to carry firearms in public will harm public health. First, research using large data sets and increasingly sophisticated analytic techniques has linked lax regimes allowing people to carry guns in public with increased gun violence.1 Moreover, allowing more guns in public does nothing to address the real drivers of criminal behavior, which include social determinants such as poverty, neighborhood violence, poor education, and substandard housing.2 Instead, an increased presence of firearms in public is likely to escalate confrontations, with data suggesting either that people who act aggressively are more likely to arm themselves or that people who are armed are more likely to act aggressively -- or perhaps both.1
Second, an increase in the number of firearms in public is likely to exacerbate both racial disparities in gun violence and racial injustice. Historically marginalized communities -- especially Black men -- already suffer disproportionately from gun violence.3 When such violence increases in response to Bruen, it will undoubtedly be used to justify more intensive policing that disproportionately affects Black men and other marginalized communities, increasing the risk of government-inflicted harm. We need only consider well-known cases such as those of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, and John Crawford III to recognize the high prevalence of racial biases and prejudice in law enforcement...
Language: en |