WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court issued a major decision on Thursday on Second Amendment rights, with Justice Samuel Alito citing Independent Women’s Law Center’s (IWLC) amicus brief twice

In its first major Second Amendment case in over a decade, the Supreme Court clarified that the right to carry a handgun for purposes of self-defense applies beyond the home. This is good news for women, who will now be free to carry a weapon outside the home for purposes of self-defense.

Justice Alito’s concurrence in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen cites IWLC’s amicus brief to note that, according to the CDC, defensive gun use is effective in preventing injury: 

“[s]tudies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

Alito also cites IWLC’s brief for the proposition that women, in particular, may have particular reason to believe they  need a firearm to protect themselves. 

As IWLC’s brief explained, women remain more vulnerable than men to violent crime and because of their relative size, are often at a self-defense disadvantage vis-a-vis attackers. Carrying a firearm can level the field in a life-threatening confrontation.

To read the full brief, click HERE

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www.iwlc.org

Independent Women’s Law Center advocates for equal opportunity, individual liberty, and respect for the American constitutional order.