Justices decline to hear NY gun-permit case

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a rebuff to gun-rights advocates including the National Rifle Association, leaving intact New York's requirement that people wishing to carry a handgun in public show a special need for protection.

Refusing for now to be drawn into the fractious nationwide debate over firearms, the justices yesterday let stand a federal appeals court decision that said the century-old New York law didn't infringe the Constitution's Second Amendment. The court made no comment, turning away an appeal by five New York residents and a gun-rights group as part of a list of orders released in Washington.

High court review of the New York case would have threatened public-possession restrictions in as many as 10 states. Lower courts are divided on the measures, making it likely the Supreme Court will consider the issue at a later point.

"It is only a matter of time before the justices hear a case about public possession of guns," said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and the author of a book on the history of the gun-rights battle.

Meanwhile, key measures of New York's tough new gun law took effect Monday, meaning owners of firearms now reclassified as assault weapons are required to register the guns. There are also new limits on the number of bullets allowed in magazines.

In upholding New York's century-old law on handguns, which requires applicants to show "proper cause" to get a permit to carry a weapon, a federal appeals court pointed to what it called "a long-standing tradition of states regulating firearm possession and use in public because of the dangers posed to public safety."

The measure was challenged by five residents of New York's Westchester County and the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun-rights group based in Bellevue, Wash. The National Rifle Association and 20 states backed the appeal.