Eh, not quite. My read is that a State has the power to regulate carry of firearms, but such regulation cannot be arbitrary or capricious (which means simply "without cause; impulsive"). The state must show compelling government interest in completely prohibiting CC (and because 48 of 50 states have some sort of CC issue policy, and 39 of them are "shall-issue", that's going to be a VERY tough argument to make), and it cannot adopt or continue a "may-issue" policy that relies on personal discretion. I think the CC laws of Hawaii, southern California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York are most in danger because their #1 reason for denial is quite literally "because I said so"; they do not issue even though they can. "May-issue" states that require a demonstrated need, but have an established system to evaluate such need and will issue if deomonstrated, MAY be safe as you could call it a special requirement of an otherwise "shall-issue" policy. "Shall-issue" policies that do not allow discretion or require demonstrated need are probably quite safe as long as the requirements are not so difficult to meet that they bar virtually all lawful individuals from attaining the license.The Annoyed Man wrote:My guess is "no," for two reasons:
1. Ginsburg voted with the dissent.
2. The majority opinion doesn't really address concealed carry in terms of the Heller decision.
Ginsburg's basic premise is this: Yes, the RKBA is an individual right, but the state has the authority to capriciously abridge that right whenever it pleases the state. Search the majority opinion for the use of the word "capricious." The majority opnion argues that DC may require licensing and registration, but it may not do so capriciously - meaning that it must be consistently applied. Ginsburg's vote against that essentially means that she holds the view that the state may capriciously exercise such authority.
The perfect majority opinion would have held 1) that the RKBA is an individual right; and that 2) the state has no authority to compel licensing and registration in the exercise of that right any more than it has such authority to compel licensing and registration for the exercise of free speech and religion.
Instead, the majority opinion upheld (1), and indirectly affirmed the state's authority in (2). That means that the state still has constitutional authority to disallow CCW (by not issuing licenses) if it chooses to do so.
For instance, California can't say "ok, we'll adopt shall-issue licensing, IF the applicant can pass a practical qualification of shooting a 1" rapid-fire 10-round grouping with an unscoped handgun at 25 yards".
Uh-uh; a qualification that only an IPSC Grand Master could pass (which is by definition only the top 5% of IPSC competitors) is infringing. They also could not make the beureaucracy impenetrable, for instance "the state shall have up to 75 years to process an application and issue a license; if the license cannot be issued in that time, the office will just have to try harder but will not be penalized". 