As the world looks on in horror following mass killings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, the US supreme court is set to issue its first major ruling on gun rights in over a decade.
And with a conservative super majority now installed on the bench, most onlookers expect a substantial broadening of second amendment rights in the country despite the widespread revulsion at the latest shootings in a supermarket and a school.
Although such a decision may seem incongruous with the outpouring of grief and anger after the murder of 19 Texan elementary school students and two teachers at the hand of an 18 year-old assault rifle wielding gunman earlier this week, it would also be in keeping with the creeping rightwing extremism on America’s highest court.
A far reaching legacy of Donald Trump’s four years as president, which saw the installation of three rightwing judges, each backed wholesale by the powerful gun lobby movement.
“Before the Trump appointees were on the supreme court, the court had multiple opportunities to take cases that could expand second amendment protections, but it repeatedly turned those efforts aside,” said Adam Winkler, a supreme court and gun policy specialist at UCLA law school. “Now we see that the supreme court is taking big gun cases and seems prepared to issue a very expansive ruling. This is directly attributable to the 2016 election.”
Before the court comes New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, a case challenging a New York law limiting concealed handgun carry in public. The law, more than a century old, requires residents to obtain concealed carry licenses by demonstrating they face a “special or unique danger to life” requiring firearms possession in public.
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