Friday, 24th June, 2022

Page 2
DAILY ANALYST Friday, 24th June, 2022
Global News
The US Supreme
Court has struck
down a New York
law restricting gun
carrying rights.
The law required residents
who want a licence to prove
"proper cause" to carry concealed
weapons and that they
faced "a special or unique"
danger.
The 6-3 decision stated the
requirement violates the Constitutional
right to bear arms.
The ruling jeopardises similar
restrictions in other states
and expands gun rights.
Justice Clarence Thomas,
writing for the six-justice
conservative majority on the
"Of 500 patients who
have come to the clinic
since the morning, 200
have died" - that is the
blunt assessment of
Muhammad Gul, a staff member
at a tiny clinic in Gyan, in
eastern Afghanistan.
The facility has just five
beds, but Tuesday's earthquake
left even these meagre
resources unusable.
"All the clinic's rooms have
been destroyed," Mr Gul told
the BBC.
He said a helicopter had
airlifted a handful of patients
from the remote district in
Paktika province to cities for
treatment, and two doctors
were manning a makeshift
outdoor clinic to try to treat
people who had nowhere else
to go.
The generator supplying
power has only a limited
supply of fuel, and the help
promised by other provinces
has yet to materialise.
Meanwhile, casualties
keep on arriving.
"There are dozens of people
who need immediate medical
help. I don't think they will
survive the night," Mr Gul
added.
court, held that Americans
have a right to carry "commonly
used" firearms in public
for personal defence.
The Second Amendment
right to bear arms is not a
"second class" constitutional
right subject to greater restrictions
"than other Bill of
Rights guarantees," he wrote.
The liberal justices Elena
Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and
Stephen Breyer dissented.
The Supreme Court's decision
comes amid renewed
intensity in the debate over
gun rights as high profile
shootings - including at a primary
school in Uvalde, Texas
and a grocery store in Buffalo,
New York last month - have
energised gun rights supporters
and gun control activists
alike.
Ahead of the Supreme
Court ruling, the US Senate
had announced steps towards
new legislation tightening
access to firearms.
However, Thursday's decision
from the top US court
continued a steady pattern of
rulings that have expanded
gun rights, holding that the
right to carry firearms both at
home and in public is enshrined
in the Second Amendment
to the US Constitution.
The decision further cements
the court's record on
gun rights, not only striking
down New York state's law
but also endangering similar
regulations in states like California,
Massachusetts, New
Jersey and Maryland.
Even in the shadow of
mass shootings in Uvalde and
Buffalo, the six-justice majority
on the Supreme Court stood
by a broad interpretation of
Afghanistan quake: Gyan clinic with
five beds for 500 injured patients
The earthquake struck
impoverished hilly areas with
weak buildings, ill-equipped
to handle the shock. Hundreds
of houses have been
destroyed and there have
been landslides.
Gyan is one of the worsthit
areas. Many people
remain trapped under the
rubble.
International development
agencies set up the
clinic there a couple of years
ago. It was meant to deal with
minor health conditions and
refer people to hospitals in
major cities for more significant
treatment. It had
no accident and emergency
department.
Since the hard-line
Islamist Taliban took power
across the country last
August, many international
aid agencies have left the
country. The medical system
has been dealing with severe
shortages of supplies and
staff.
When the Taliban's acting
district governor toured Gyan
on Tuesday, people shouted
at him, telling him to leave, a
volunteer from a neighbouring
district told the BBC.
Supreme Court ruling
expands US gun rights
"The Taliban are not
capable of dealing with this
disaster. There is no system in
place," the volunteer, who did
not want to be named, said.
"And we cannot be hopeful
for international help. The
world has forgotten Afghanistan."
Even before the Taliban
takeover, the country's emergency
services in its larger
towns and cities had limited
capacity to respond to natural
disasters. There were few aircraft
and helicopters available.
According to Paktika's
medical authorities, there is a
severe shortage of painkillers
and antibiotics in the region.
One of the doctors at
Gyan's makeshift clinic went
there from the neighbouring
district of Ghazni to volunteer.
There was one young
father who had suffered a
chest fracture, and who was
crying and asking for his family
members, including his
children, the doctor said. "He
asked me to let him die if they
were not alive."
Most of the patients were
men, as women and children
were less likely to be able to
free themselves from debris
the Second Amendment first
outlined by a narrower court
majority in 2008.
As these court precedents
pile up, it will be increasingly
difficult for future Supreme
Court justices to change
course and interpret the
Constitution as permitting
broader gun restrictions.
In his dissent, Justice Breyer
noted that gun violence has
taken a significant number of
lives in the US this year.
"Since the start of this year
alone (2022), there have already
been 277 reported mass
shootings - an average of more
than one per day," he said.
The decision was quickly
condemned by New York officials,
including Democratic
Governor Kathy Hochul.
It is "outrageous that at
a moment of national reckoning
on gun violence, the
Supreme court has recklessly
struck down a New York law
that limits those who can
carry concealed weapons," she
said.
and destroyed buildings, the
doctor said.
Some children were at the
clinic without their parents,
including a severely injured
boy of eight.
"He was begging people to
go and help his parents and
siblings who were trapped in
their house," said the doctor.
"He then overheard someone
tell me that they were
all dead, and he cried and fell
unconscious."
The BBC has been shown
photos of people with open
wounds waiting to be seen at
the clinic.
Bodies are reported to be
lying on the ground in the
area.
There are no official aid
In the wake of the decision,
Eric Adams, the New York City
mayor, said he would review
other ways to restrict gun access,
such as by tightening the
application process for buying
firearms and looking at bans
at certain locations.
US President Joe Biden said
he was "deeply disappointed"
by a ruling that "contradicts
both common sense and the
Constitution, and should trouble
us all".
The National Rifle Association
(NRA), on the other hand,
celebrated the ruling.
The gun lobby helped back
plaintiffs in the case, Robert
Nash and Brandon Koch - two
New Yorkers who had applied
for a concealed carry permit
but were denied them, despite
having licences for recreational
gun ownership.
More than 390 million
guns are owned by civilians
in the US. In 2020 alone, more
than 45,000 Americans died
from firearms-related injuries
including homicides and
suicides.
workers present, but people
from neighbouring areas are
arriving to help with rescue
efforts.
One volunteer rescue
worker from the nearby city
of Urgun was helping to pull
trapped people from the
rubble.
He said he had found 40
bodies since the morning,
mostly of young children.
But even for those who did
make it out of the devastation
alive, the immediate future
looks bleak.
"We don't even have access
to clean water to wash the
wounds and it's extremely
hot," the volunteer doctor
said. "I think soon, infection
will spread."