U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Gun Lobby in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a Decision That Will Cost Lives

Amidst a surge in gun deaths, the Court is bucking settled second amendment jurisprudence and is continuing its extreme expansion of gun rights at the cost of our other constitutional freedoms

Washington, D.C. – Young people will die as a result of the Court’s decision. The Court today overturned a hundred years of settled law. It has demonstrated once again that the Supreme Court of today is an undemocratic political animal, not one that is interested in moving with public opinion, with settled constitutional jurisprudence, or in protecting the lives of children. At the height of the gun violence epidemic that is the leading cause of death for children, the Court has pinned one arm behind our backs and said that our lives aren’t worth saving. It overturned New York’s and seven other states’, common-sense gun laws that simply invite responsibility to carrying hidden firearms. We already know what happens when people can, without limit, carry firearms in the public: people die. Enough is enough.

This ruling puts the gun lobby’s cycle of corruption on full display: the NRA spent millions to elect Donald Trump who went on to hand pick the extremist justices who sided with the gun lobby today. They spent millions more on ads supporting those same justices who sided with the gun lobby and who hold their seat on the bench thanks to the very lawmakers in Congress funded by the gun industry. This is not about responsible gun ownership, but universal gun ownership. It’s about well-funded special interests working against the vast majority of Americans who want common-sense gun safety. It is wrong, it is dangerous, and it flies in the face of precedent and public opinion.

The Supreme Court had a chance to prove that our lives are worth the full protection of the law but, instead, they became yet another institution that values guns over the American people.  We have an organized network of engaged young people nationwide who are fed up with our leaders doing nothing to end senseless, preventable gun violence. Hundreds of thousands across the country marched for their lives this month, and we will organize action again to not only pass gun reform in the Senate but in the courthouse and at the ballot box.

We must fight more than ever for our right to not be shot. This blatant disregard for our lives or safety is the reason thousands of people in over 450 communities marched earlier this month, and why they will do it again.

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