The decision follows recent mass shootings and is expected to ultimately allow more people to legally carry guns on the streets of the nation’s largest cities — including New York, Los Angeles and Boston — and elsewhere. About a quarter of the U.S. population live in states expected to be affected by the ruling, which struck down a New York gun law.

The decision, the high court’s first major gun decision in more than a decade, was 6-3 with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.

Unsurprisingly, the comments from area and state officials follow party lines. Republicans hailed the rulings while Democrats voiced their concerns.

In the meantime, Congress was working toward passage of gun legislation following mass shootings in Texas, New York and California. On Thursday, senators were expected to clear the way for that measure, modest in scope but still the most far-reaching in decades.

FILE — A police officer guards the main entrance to the Supreme Court in Washington, Oct. 9, 2018. The Supreme Court, Thursday, June 23, 2022, struck down a restrictive New York gun law in a major ruling for gun rights. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling, which guts state concealed carry permitting laws, is not just irresponsible, it is downright dangerous,” said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

“Our nation is in the middle of a gun violence epidemic and instead of working to protect our communities, this court has made it even easier for potentially dangerous people to carry concealed handguns in public spaces.”

State Gov. Kathy Hochul noted recent mass shootings in her comments opposing the decision. “Does everyone understand what a concealed weapon means? That you have no forewarning that someone can hide a weapon on them and go into our subways, go into our grocery stores like stores up in Buffalo, New York, where I’m from, go into a school in Parkland or Uvalde.

“This could place millions of New Yorkers in harm’s way. And this is at a time when we’re still mourning the loss of lives, as I just mentioned. This decision, isn’t just reckless, it’s reprehensible. It’s not what New Yorkers want. We should have the right of determination of what we want to do in terms of our gun laws in our state.”

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, called the ruling a “validation of the Second Amendment and a victory for law-abiding gun owners. … If the governor and legislative majorities were genuinely concerned about public safety, they would target their efforts on the criminals engaging in gun violence and other crimes by repealing their disastrous bail ‘reform’ law,” he said.

In most of the country gun owners have little difficulty legally carrying their weapons in public. But that had been harder to do in New York and the handful of states with similar laws. New York’s law, which has been in place since 1913, says that to carry a concealed handgun in public, a person applying for a license has to show “proper cause,” a specific need to carry the weapon.

The state issues unrestricted licenses where a person can carry their gun anywhere and restricted licenses that allow a person to carry the weapon but just for specific purposes such as hunting and target shooting or to and from their place of business.

The Supreme Court last issued a major gun decision in 2010. In that decision and a ruling from 2008 the justices established a nationwide right to keep a gun at home for self-defense. The question for the court this time was about carrying one outside the home.

The challenge to the New York law was brought by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, which describes itself as the nation’s oldest firearms advocacy organization, and two men seeking an unrestricted ability to carry guns outside their homes.