# Supreme Court says Constitution protects right to carry a gun outside the home **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 23, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692 "2022-06-23T19:03:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/121 "2022-06-28T18:27:30Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Not in the US where such shootings are extremely common, at least. > > But these days I just take it for granted that any environment or locality that’s mentioned in proposed gun-control legislation is an environment or locality where multiple instances of gun violence have recently occurred. Haven’t been wrong so far. This is like the inverse of the old joke about the magic rock that keeps tigers away. What environment or locality can you come up with that _hasn’t_ had at least a couple of shootings take place in it? You tell me that there were two shootings in graveyards last month in the US, I’m hearing, “Graveyards are a relatively safe place from gun violence.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/122 "2022-06-28T18:33:57Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > What environment or locality can you come up with that _hasn’t_ had at least a couple of shootings take place in it? Since the start of the current month? I’m baffled as to why anyone would think that cemeteries, where recently dead people get buried outdoors in the presence of groups of their closest associates, wouldn’t be vulnerable to fairly frequent violent abuses of gun possession rights. I mean, it seems like an ideal environment for the continuance of any kind of group-based armed hostilities. Last week you plugged one of the guys you’re mad at, and now while they’re burying him you can get a shot at his brother/friend/wife/etc., whom you’re also mad at. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/123 "2022-06-28T19:03:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Since the start of the current month? Yes. You make some good arguments for the joke being inapt, but you originally said it was in _bad taste_, as if everyone should have heard about the two shootings in Wisconsin and Kentucky, the way they’ve heard about Uvalde or Parkland. If making a joke about a shooting in a type of area where there has recently been a shooting, then there’s literally no place that someone can joke about a shooting happening in, because they happen absolutely everywhere, all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/124 "2022-06-28T19:03:45Z")
The Racine WI shooting was at the funeral for a Racine man shot by police. [Mourners Shot in Racine at Funeral for Da’Shontay King, Wisconsin Man Killed by Cops](https://www.thedailybeast.com/mourners-shot-in-racine-at-funeral-for-dashontay-king-wisconsin-man-killed-by-cops) While I haven’t found any online follow-up of the case, I’m willing to bet the shooter or shooters were in possession of guns illegally. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/125 "2022-06-28T19:09:18Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You make some good arguments for the joke being inapt, but you originally said it was in _bad taste_, as if everyone should have heard about the two shootings in Wisconsin and Kentucky, the way they’ve heard about Uvalde or Parkland. You are right, given how unremarkable such shootings are in the US, it was unreasonable of me to assume that Bootb had ever even heard of them. But it still seems counterintuitive or naive to me to assume that cemeteries are unlikely places for gun violence. I mean, one could also naively assume that churches are unlikely places for gun violence, and look how many church shootings there are. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/126 "2022-06-28T19:27:42Z")
I was at a cemetery recently for a funeral, there were quite a number of people gathered. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/127 "2022-06-28T19:31:58Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > While I haven’t found any online follow-up of the case, I’m willing to bet the shooter or shooters were in possession of guns illegally. Too bad its just so easy for someone to get a gun illegally. And of course, even someone possessing a gun illegally wouldn’t be questioned carrying a gun publically through the streets and into a graveyard where mourners are gathered. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/128 "2022-06-28T19:52:48Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > While I haven’t found any online follow-up of the case, I’m willing to bet the shooter or shooters were in possession of guns illegally. What do you have to do in Wisconsin to possess a gun legally and carry it? Asking sincerely, since I have no idea what the local laws are there. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/129 "2022-06-28T20:37:07Z")
Wisconsin only requires a carry permit for concealed weapons, open carry is permitless. Like most states you have to pass a background check to purchase a handgun from a FFL dealer. And of course convicted felons cannot legally possess firearms. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Too bad its just so easy for someone to get a gun illegally. What do you suggest to make it harder? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/130 "2022-06-28T20:59:15Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Like most states you have to pass a background check to purchase a handgun from a FFL dealer. And of course convicted felons cannot legally possess firearms. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe they were felons (before the shooting), so if they were open-carrying and not felons, then they were legally possessing before the shooting started, right? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/131 "2022-06-28T21:13:50Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I don’t think there’s any reason to believe they were felons (before the shooting), I’d like to know one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/132 "2022-06-28T21:44:22Z")
That’s getting into gun control territory, but as I have expressed in such threads, requiring gun owners to properly secure their guns, and to ensure that background checks are done and the new owner is registered upon transfers, as well as reporting when guns are stolen, would drastically reduce the flow of guns into the hands of criminals. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/133 "2022-06-28T23:39:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > And I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that anybody who made a joke about it being unnecessary to worry about gun violence in a particular environment or locality would have checked for relevant recent shootings there. I was not making a joke. Outside of the specific scenario where somebody has a grudge against some specific person who is at a cemetery at a specific time, cemeteries are genuinely safe from gun violence. Any random wacko who wants to kill people and commit mayhem is going to pick some place OTHER than where the already-dead outnumber the living. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/134 "2022-06-29T01:22:15Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > Any random wacko who wants to kill people and commit mayhem is going to pick some place OTHER than where the already-dead outnumber the living. You seem so fixated on the fact that a cemetery already contains lots of dead people, but that has nothing to do with whether and to what extent it offers shooters opportunities to make more dead people. From the point of view of potential gun targets, a cemetery is effectively just a park where groups of people frequently assemble (AFAICT the average cemetery has a few funerals per day) and random individuals may exercise or visit the graves. It also frequently has a lot of convenient trees and small structures that a would-be shooter can hide behind. A random wacko who wants to kill people and commit mayhem has GREAT opportunities to do so in a cemetery. The fact that there are still going to be way more dead people underneath the grass that he walks on than whatever number he manages to put down on top of the grass is absolutely irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/135 "2022-06-29T01:42:45Z")
Let that go, about the number of already-dead people. The fact of the matter is that any place that is proclaimed and touted to be a gun free zone are perfect places for shooters who want to wreak havoc and kill lots of people. That’s exactly what those chicken-shit spineless evil villains need - a place where they know for almost certainty that nobody can thwart their plan. At least not for the first several minutes. And by then at least dozens of innocent victims can be killed. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/136 "2022-06-29T03:35:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You seem so fixated on the fact that a cemetery already contains lots of dead people, but that has nothing to do with whether and to what extent it offers shooters opportunities to make more dead people. And you are so bizarrely fixated on the fact that SOME people are in cemeteries SOME of the time, that you have lost all perspective and common sense. Any random mall, school, church, or nightclub is going to offer **FAR** more targets for a shooter than any 5 cemeteries combined. Here’s a list of the mass shootings so far this year. I dare you to go down the list, and see how many occurred at a cemetery. Why, there are far more shootings at **private residences** than in cemeteries. > **[List of mass shootings in the United States in 2022](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022)** > > This is a list of shootings in the United States that occurred in 2022. Mass shootings are incidents involving several victims of firearm-related violence. The precise inclusion criteria are disputed, and there is no broadly accepted definition. > Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks shootings and their characteristics in the United States, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator(s), are shot in one location at roug... ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2022, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/137 "2022-06-29T04:27:21Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > Here’s a list of the mass shootings so far this year. I dare you to go down the list, and see how many occurred at a cemetery. Heh, pretty cherry-picky, ISTM. I’ve already drawn your attention to two cemetery shootings just this past month, in each of which at least two people were shot (one fatally, in one of the cases). And your response is to change the subject to the arbitrarily defined category of “mass shootings” for which a minimum of four people (not counting the shooter) have to be shot in order to qualify. In fact, even that arbitrarily more stringent condition is met by [a cemetery mass shooting in 2021](https://www.wsfa.com/2021/06/28/1-killed-3-injured-shooting-alabama-funeral/). (As well as by a large number of memorial-service and vigil mass shootings held in locations other than cemeteries, of course.) It’s quite true, naturally, that there are more mass shootings in more densely populated areas, including clubs and private residences, than in cemeteries. But no, that doesn’t automatically mean that cemeteries are guaranteed safe from gun violence. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/138 "2022-07-02T20:48:30Z")
New York has passed new restrictions on where a gun may be carried. > **[New York governor signs bill to ban guns from Times Square, mass transit](https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-lawmakers-introduce-bill-ban-guns-times-square/story?id=86071477)** > > New York lawmakers introduced legislation that would ban the concealed carry of guns in a "sensitive location," including Times Square and mass public transportation. More or less everywhere. The inclusion of all mass transit is particularly a bad idea. Also things like churches? Why not let each church decide for itself? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/139 "2022-07-02T21:22:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > More or less everywhere. Eh, just most of the places where there are going to be large groups of people gathered. > [@DrDeth](#): > > The inclusion of all mass transit is particularly a bad idea. Because guns on the subway will make everyone safer. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Also things like churches? Why not let each church decide for itself? I suppose that way, if you see someone carrying a gun into a church, you don’t have to contact the church’s administration to find out if they are allowed before you call the police. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692/140 "2022-07-02T21:29:57Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Because guns on the subway will make everyone safer. No, but not more dangerous either. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I suppose that way, if you see someone carrying a gun into a church, you don’t have to contact the church’s administration to find out if they are allowed before you call the police. In places with a lot of CCW holders, businesses simply post a sign, saying “no guns” or words to that effect. It is legally binding, except for LEOs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-says-constitution-protects-right-to-carry-a-gun-outside-the-home/966692.md?page=8)