In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in NYS RPA vs. Bruen, Sochie Nnaemeka, Director of the New York Working Families Party, issued the following statement:

“Today the extreme right-wing Supreme Court defied the will and undermined the safety of New Yorkers by nullifying a hundred-year-old New York gun safety law. The Court’s decision comes weeks after a white supremacist gunman massacred Black community members at a grocery store in Buffalo, after another gunman killed nineteen elementary school children and two teachers in Uvalde, and after countless other incidents of gun violence in communities across New York City and state. The Court’s decision is salt in our collective wounds. 

“Working families want stronger gun safety laws, not to see those protections taken away or watered down. This is yet another example of a right-wing Supreme Court flouting the will of the majority and enforcing the rule of a fringe minority on the rest of us. 

“Lawmakers must act now to pass the strongest gun safety and violence prevention laws that this new decision allows, while not perpetuating the mass incarceration of Black and brown communities. Meanwhile, voters are not powerless. We can elect more leaders across this nation who support rebalancing the Supreme Court. Here in New York we can elect longtime gun-safety champion Jumaane Williams as Governor and Ana Maria Archila as Lt. Governor. 

“Today is a hard day for everyone reeling from the latest episodes of gun violence, but there is a path forward to a safer New York and a safer United States. Let’s fight for it.”