After barely surviving an initial court challenge, the New York gun-control law that attempts to walk up to the newly drawn line of what is constitutionally permissible takes effect on Thursday amid a last-minute scramble by gun owners to obtain concealed-carry permits. But, in California, a rush to enact a similar legislative response failed in a late-night vote.
New York and California are among the states forced to react to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June that struck down New York's restrictive regulation of carrying concealed guns in public. A state law passed the following week has led to confusion and court challenges, one of which ended just hours before the law took effect when a federal judge held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the challenge, even though the judge found their claims persuasive, the Associated Press reports. The law's arrival sparked a flood of applicants for pistol permits as gun owners tried to dodge the new requirements for 16 hours of training and scrutiny of their social-media posts. But long backlogs will mean that those without a permit as of Thursday must follow the new rules, the New York Times reports. While New Yorkers posted signs about public places that do or don't allow guns under the new rules, California lawmakers made similar efforts to adopt new rules that fit within the caveats the Supreme Court made in its ruling striking down laws that made it too difficult to get a permit. On the last day of its session, the state Assembly by two votes rejected heavy lobbying by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders, the Los Angeles Times reports. Like New York's law, the California bill would have classified numerous public places as too "sensitive" for gun carrying and placed barriers to easily winning a gun permit.