WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said on Thursday he is “deeply disappointed” with a Supreme Court ruling that expands the right to carry firearms in public across the United States.
“I am deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling,” he said in a statement. “This ruling contradicts both common sense and the constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”
The governor of California, the state with some of the most restrictive firearms laws, said that the court’s ruling that Americans have the right to carry guns in public is “shameful,”
“A dark day in America,” Gavin Newsom wrote on Twitter.
“This is a dangerous decision from a court hell bent on pushing a radical ideological agenda and infringing on the rights of states to protect our citizens from being gunned down in our streets, schools, and churches. Shameful.”
The 6-3 decision by a right-leaning court strikes down a century-old New York law that required a person to prove they had a legitimate self-defence need, or “proper cause,” to receive a gun permit.
The ruling comes just weeks after a man walked into a Texas elementary school and used a legally-acquired weapon to kill 19 children and two adults, in a crime that shocked America.