The US Supreme Court will hear an appeal against a New York state law on Wednesday in the most important court session ever devoted to firearms in more than 10 years.
This session raises great concerns among supporters of imposing strict rules, who fear that the conservative majority of the court (six judges out of nine), may issue a decision that will allow all Americans to leave their homes armed.
"The law at the heart of the file has been around for more than 100 years...The mere fact that the court has agreed to look into it should concern us all," Eric Turchuil, executive director of Evertown Law, said in a letter, a copy of which was received by AFP.
"The stakes are very high...especially in the context of increasing gun violence," he added, referring to the rise in the number of murders and fatal accidents from about 15,500 to 19,500 between 2019 and 2020 in the United States.
In contrast, advocates of bearing arms see in these figures evidence that Americans need more arms to defend themselves and feel comfortable taking the matter before a supreme court that considers their case.
The influential pressure group the National Rifle Association (NRA) said recently that the court, the guardian of the law, into which former Republican President Donald Trump has brought in three judges, "today includes a large majority... of judges who believe the Constitution should be interpreted." As it was understood when it was written."
The League is struggling for a literal reading of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment, passed in 1791, states that "a well-organized militia is essential to the security of a free nation and the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
In 1939, the Supreme Court affirmed that the amendment protects the right to use weapons in a law enforcement force, such as the military or the police, but that it is not an individual right of self-defense.
It changed its position in a historic decision in 2008 and allowed for the first time the possession of a weapon in the home for the purpose of self-defense, but it left to cities and states the issue of regulating the carrying of weapons outside the home, so the rules for this vary greatly from place to place.
"worrying"
After refusing for a decade to reconsider the matter despite numerous requests, the Supreme Court finally accepted an appeal by a chapter of the National Rifle Association and two gun owners opposing a New York state law.
Since 1913, this law has restricted the issuance of permits to carry concealed weapons to persons who had reason to believe that they might have to defend themselves, for example because of their occupation or threats.
Duke University law professor Joseph Blocher said that if the Supreme Court overturned this law, it could overturn similar rules in force in seven other states, some of which are densely populated, such as California or New Jersey. "80 million Americans live in these states, so the actual impact will be huge," he said.
On the other hand, said Eric Rubin, associate professor at Texas Law School, that the file "may constitute a turning point in the way courts handle cases related to the Second Amendment."
Over the past decade, courts have generally held that restrictions adopted by states or cities can be justified by security concerns.
Proponents of bearing arms ask the court to take advantage of the New York case "to reject this approach and focus only on text, history and tradition," according to Rubin, who stressed that "it is troubling because violence through the use of firearms was not a problem in the eighteenth century."
He added that if the court's decision was in their favour, "it could open the door to a series of new complaints against all existing laws."
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