MOSCOW, April 15 – RAPSI, Ingrid Burke. The US Supreme Court declined to consider a case challenging New York’s state gun laws in the context of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the rights of citizens to bear arms, according to an order list released Monday on the court’s website.

The right of US citizens to bear arms is enshrined in the second amendment to the US Constitution, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Kachalsky’s petition for certiorari, as published by Bloomberg Law’s SCOTUSblog, asserts: “New York remains among the minority of states in which the ‘right to carry weapons in case of confrontation,’ … remains illusory. State law treats the carrying of handguns for self-defense not as a right, but as an administrative privilege lying beyond the reach of most people. Asserting that bearing arms is too dangerous to allow as a matter of course, New York forbids responsible, law-abiding adults from carrying handguns for self-defense unless they first demonstrate a ‘proper cause’ to do so. By definition, ‘proper cause’ must exceed the self-defense interest citizens ordinarily hold.”

The case, Kachalsky v. Cacace centered on the issues of whether the Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to carry handguns for purposes of self-defense outside of the home, and whether state authorities violate the Second Amendment by denying citizens such right in absence of a “proper cause.”

Petitioners in the case asserted that New York’s state gun laws violated the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers by stifling their rights to carry concealed weapons. 
The Supreme Court does not disclose its reason for excluding from consideration specific cases. Thus its reason for doing so in this case is unknown.

New York’s gun laws have become even stricter in the months since the Kachalsky case was initially filed.

Various US pro-gun advocacy groups teamed up last month to sue New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and various other state and local officials over the constitutionality of a sweeping gun control law passed last January, which the governor lauded as “the most comprehensive gun laws in the nation.”

The complaint claims that the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Act, which was passed last January, is repugnant to the Second Amendment as it: “creates new offenses with severe criminal penalties for previously-lawful activities involving the acquisition and possession of rifles, handguns, shotguns, ammunition magazines, and ammunition.”

Among the law’s key provisions are: increased reporting requirements for mental health professionals and other measures to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable; an broadly defined assault weapons ban; stronger ammunition restrictions; stricter safe storage requirements; increased penalties for illegal gun use; and increased penalties for the presence of guns in schools.

The law was passed on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the second deadliest US school shooting. 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire on students and teachers in a small town Connecticut elementary school, killing 20 children and six adults. His mother’s body was discovered in her Newton, Connecticut home, and Lanza apparently died by his own hand on the scene, bringing the death toll up to 28.