The Supreme Court will decide if New York's limits on concealed carry violate the 2nd Amendment

• The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett.
• The plaintiffs say restrictions make it "virtually impossible" to get a gun license for public carry.
• The court has granted protections for people to own guns in their homes but did not rule on ownership outside.

The Supreme Court is taking up a gun-control case to determine whether New York's limits on concealed carry violate the Second Amendment.

The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett, raises the question of whether there is a constitutional right to carry guns outside the home.

New York's handgun laws date back to 1913 and require "proper cause" to obtain a concealed-carry handgun license, meaning any applicant must show "a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community."

Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Hawaii, Delaware, and California have similar gun restrictions.

The case involves two New York men who were denied licenses for not meeting the "proper cause" standard. The plaintiffs claimed in their petition for certiorari that New York's law made it "virtually impossible for the ordinary law-abiding citizen to obtain a license" because of the proper-cause requirement.

The plaintiffs petitioned the Supreme Court to rule on "whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary law-abiding citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense." However, the court agreed to hear a slightly different question: "whether the state's denial of petitioners' applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment."

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia et al. v. Heller that Washington, DC's ban on handguns in the home violated the Second Amendment. The regulations had required any person who owned a gun to store it unloaded and disassembled or restricted by a trigger lock when not in use. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed the right to own a gun inside the home for self-defense, but it did not grant additional protections outside the home.

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the New York plaintiffs could drastically alter local government and congressional attempts to legislate stronger gun protections and could lead to rewriting decades of judicial precedent over firearm restrictions as mass shootings overwhelm the nation.