Last month, the Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that upheld Sacramento’s “may issue” concealed carry permitting process. The Ninth Circus had ruled that, that despite Heller and McDonald, there’s no right to carry concealed handguns in public in California. With Justice Kavanaugh now on the Court, gun owners had hoped for a different outcome.
But as we pointed out, there were a lot of problems with that particular case and SCOTUS is very picky in terms of what it takes for review, particularly when it deals with a hot-button subject like Second Amendment rights. TTAG reader and attorney LKB, who watches the progress of gun rights cases very closely, opined that the Court was waiting for just the right case, one that the pro-2A side judges to be ideal for re-affirming the individual right to keep and bear arms and striking another blow for the RKBA.
In his opinion, New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York is just such a case. Last week, the plaintiffs filed a brief in support of their petition for writ of certiorari. The complaint involves the City of New York’s law that prevents gun owners from transporting licensed, locked and unloaded firearms outside the city under any circumstances. They can only use their guns within the five boroughs.
Some highlights:
…(T)he City defends its extreme and novel ban on the theory that the ban makes it easier to enforce other laws that already specifically prohibit practices with which the City is really concerned. That kind of prophylaxis-on-prophylaxis is the antithesis of the meaningful tailoring required by heightened scrutiny. And it highlights that the ban is a prototypical example of a law that could survive when the collective rights view of the Second Amendment held sway but is a complete anachronism in light of Heller and McDonald. The Cityâs ban cannot be reconciled with a Second Amendment that protects individual rights or with any meaningful level of constitutional scrutiny. The fact that the Second Circuit upheld it while purporting to apply heightened scrutiny is thus reason enough for this Courtâs review. …
New York Cityâs ban on transporting licensed, locked up, and unloaded handguns to any place outside the Cityâincluding a second home where petitioners would exercise their core right to possess them for self-defense, or a shooting range at which petitioners would hone their ability to exercise that rightâis an extreme and irrational outlier that does not even make sense on its own terms.
Setting aside that there is absolutely no evidence that transporting an unloaded firearm, locked in a container separate from its ammunition, presents a material public safety risk, the Cityâs ban is not even rationally designed to reduce the incidence of such transport, as it actually forces New Yorkers to spend more time transporting their firearms through the streets of New York, rather than to more conveniently located shooting ranges just across city or state lines. And the prohibition on transporting a firearm to a second home has the bizarre result of keeping more handguns in the City, including in vacant within-city-limits residences.
That’s right. NYC’s gun owners can only use shooting ranges located within city limits. If they own a home on Long Island or in Westchester County, they can’t take their guns with them to use on a weekend trip.
As to the prohibition on transporting an unloaded and locked-up firearm to a second home, the City literally does not offer any public safety rationale at all. Instead, it merely attempts to minimize the public safety risks caused by the banâs requirement that New Yorkers leave their handguns in vacant homes. The City hypothesizes that those affected by the ban are sufficiently law-abiding that the handguns will be completely inaccessible to decidedly less law-abiding burglars. BIO.22.
But even assuming the City is not underestimating its burglars, its confidence in the law-abiding nature of its licensees fatally undermines its administrability defense. If the City can trust handgun owners to exercise such care with their handguns at home, then surely it can trust them to responsibly transport them to shooting ranges and second homes.
So how are New Yorkers supposed to train and maintain their shooting skills?
The City attempts to minimize the burden its ban imposes by asserting that petitioners could hone their skills by renting a firearm outside the City. BIO.20. As an initial matter, there is no record evidence whatsoever to substantiate this hypothesis. But more to the point, petitioners seek to confirm the operability of, and their ability to safely and effectively use, their handguns, not someone elseâs. If any of them is ever forced to defend his or her home, the fact that a different handgun maintained by someone else across the Hudson would be up to the task will be of precious little comfort.
The petitioners’ attorneys clearly aren’t above employing a little snark in their argument.
The City tries to paint its ban as in accord with federal law affirmatively protecting individualsâ rights to transport firearms in interstate commerce if they are unloaded, locked up, and not readily accessible. 18 U.S.C. §926A. According to the City, that law reflects Congressâ judgment that âonly individuals with a carry license, not those who hold a premises license,â BIO.21, may be trusted to transport their firearms. But that argument is doubly problematic. Few jurisdictions have an analog to the Cityâs âpremisesâ license, and most not only allow unlicensed possession in the home but also permit carrying without a license (or issue a license on a shall-issue basis).
Thus, the thrust of the federal law is to âconfer[] upon all law- abiding citizens a right to transport their firearms in a safe manner in interstate commerce.â City of Camden v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp., 81 F. Supp. 2d 541, 549 (D.N.J. 2000) (emphasis added). And even the City acknowledges that those with a âpremisesâ license can permissibly transport their handguns if they are unloaded, locked, and inaccessible while the owner is en route to an in-city range. Nothing in federal law remotely supports the Cityâs irrational effort to prevent licensees from employing the same safe and federally sanctioned storage conditions en route to nearby ranges or vacation homes.
And finally this:
While this Courtâs tendency to clarify constitutional boundaries by reviewing and invalidating outlier statutes that transgress those boundaries is hardly limited to the Second Amendment, there is no context in which this kind of development is more essential. This Courtâs effort to develop a coherent Second Amendment to guide lower courts was frustrated by the decades in which the collective-rights view of the amendment held sway.
This Courtâs decisions in Heller and McDonald thus reflect the sum total of this Courtâs guidance. Yet, as the petition documented, many lower courts have drained Heller and McDonald, and even the very notion of heightened scrutiny, of much of their meaning by upholding laws that regulate and tax firearms as if they were entitled to no constitutional protection. See Pet.22-24. The City dismisses these laws as unrelated to its ban, but courts have upheld such laws by applying the same basic watered-down version of heightened scrutiny that the Second Circuit applied here. Heller and McDonald began the process of developing a meaningful Second Amendment jurisprudence by invalidating outlier statutes, but they cannot be this Courtâs last word.
There’s more, including an argument that New York City’s law violates the commerce clause, all in support of the petitioners’ request for Supreme Court review of the case. Again, you can read the entire brief here.
LKB tells us the case is scheduled for a January 4 conference.  We should know the following Monday morning (January 7) whether they grant cert, deny the petition or re-list the case for the next conference. Â
Stay tuned.
If there is no right to carry concealed the words “to keep and bear arms” COULD be interpreted to mean open carry should be legal everywhere. Get a ruling in favor of that and I’ll bet carry permits would be given out adult candy.
*Covers left eye “you have the right to carry, but not concealed”
*Covers right eye “you have the right to carry, but not openly”
*Covers left eye “only militia guns are protected”
*Covers right eye “only sporting guns are protected”
High courts love them some peekaboo.
I’ve seen it discussed as either OC or CC can be prohibited, licensed, whatever, but not both. It’s interesting we are even discussing such all these years later, but as recently as 1994 in a supposedly wild and wooly state (Texas), both OC and CC were illegal, period, total prohibition. Of course, somehow the only violators routinely discovered were seriously dark-skinned, I saw an article during that time concerning a group of legislators in the Capitol comparing their EDC firearms in front of the reporter.
Not “period.” Open carry of long guns was and remains legal. Since the context here is handguns, I’ll let that imprecision slide, on that point.
However, it’s still not “period”, though, because there was a traveller’s exception for handguns. You mention there was selective enforcement of the ban; another chink in the “period” armor. Local sheriffs used to deputize their buddies to circumvent the law, as well.
The whole “Texas is actually anti-gun” bit is a countermyth to the original myth that it was “wild and wooly.” That myth, created by television shows, instilled phony notions in generations of Americans about a Texas gun-topia. Now, because we don’t sell machine guns in vending machines on elementary school campuses, it must mean we’re not strong on gun rights. Good grief.
“Now, because we donât sell machine guns in vending machines on elementary school campuses, it must mean weâre not strong on gun rights.”
I don’t know…the existence of the 30.06 and 30.07 laws and the ubiquitousness of related signs providing force of said laws goes a long way towards convincing me that no, Texas is not particularly “strong on gun rights”.
“Good grief.”
Indeed.
I agree.
But to be honest “bearing arms” always meant open or concealed. It’s just post reconstruction south that made all this permit scheme come about. Years ago it used to be a misdemeanor to carry concealed where I live but then they made it a felony.
Thanks for sharing your historical ignorance.
Concealed carry prohibitions were among the earliest gun control laws adopted in the years following the Revolution. By the late 1800s ,the most common gun law in America was a ban on concealed firearms. The first such law was adopted in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, Indiana banned concealed carry in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839, and Ohio in 1859. Governor James Stephen Hogg of Texas said at the time, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”
Though most of the laws regulated concealed carry, several states with constitutional protections for gun rights â including Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma â restricted or banned open carry, too.
“If there is no right to carry concealed the words âto keep and bear armsâ COULD be interpreted to mean open carry should be legal everywhere. ”
Let me help you with that.
If “open carry” were to be declared “THE” right to bear arms, concealed carry would die, everywhere, immediately. There being no constitutional protection for concealed carry, every jurisdiction would become “may issue” virtually overnight. After that, we would see a wave of “reasonable restrictions” issued regarding where and when open carry would be allowed. It will likely boil down to domicile, adjacent property and out buildings, vehicle, shooting ranges, and all with severe restrictions on alarming the public. Open carry will not settle the issue, only move the game to a new stadium.
The plus I could see would be if carry of some sort, O or C, would be ruled, that states would choose Concealed, since “out of sight, ought of mind” would be ‘safest’ for states like California, whose citizens might get the ‘the vapors’ and faint dead away (I wish!) at the sight of a gun…
Open, Concealed, both; that is the question. Not spending any brain cells contemplating that the SC will set a clear ruling that government may not dictate the means by which “the people” defend themselves against tyrannical government.
I don’t understand how this will help anyone who doesn’t live in NYC. And it’s not like this will extend to carrying loaded anywhere in NY. The kourts rulings are always extremely narrow.
Which is good, and which is why it’s dumb to rely on them to solve a broad problem.
Correct. I believe relying on SCOTUS to nullify mag bans, semi auto bans, and may issue is foolish. Meanwhile, the fascists are going state by state with ballot amendments to accomplish their goals.
I agree with you 100%. It must be the younger gun owning crowd that keeps believing that the 2nd Amendment will be restored to pre-1934 status by relying on two non-shooter SCJs to save it (one who rules on precedent instead of Founder’s intent). The naive in the gun community never experienced Reagan banning machine guns, Bush 1 banning imported “assault weapons,” Bush 1, Reagan, and Bush 2 in favor of the domestic “assault weapons” bans and hi-cap mag bans, etc., etc. They are still applauding Trump when he has pushed for the ban on almost 1 million bump stocks – I can’t wait to hear the excuses when Trump makes a deal with the 2A with democrats and more bans are enacted. Is it now 5D chess???
Remember, the 2nd Amendment is a right to defend your life and liberty against tyranny and genocide, it’s not just a permit for sport shooting and defense against robbers as the NRA and Republicrats would want you to believe.
Too late; Trump is banning guns without even going through congress, now, let alone collaborating with Democrats.
Yes, the excuses be a’flowin’
Point me to the guns that Trump has banned. I’ll wait. This “bump stock ban” is vaporware at this point.
What it will do is affirm a right under the Second outside the home. Massachusetts has gone so far as concluding that the right to keep and bear exists only in the home, and everything else is at the discretion of the police. In Peruta, the Ninth held there is no right to carry a concealed firearm, specifically leaving open the question as to whether there is a right (as opposed to a license) to bear outside the home, and it has been sitting on cases that have raised that issue. And this is a particularly egregious case, as was the original Heller case, which makes it easy to overturn the court of appeals, leaving an open slate in the discussion to explore the scope of the right outside the home. So yeah, it could help.
On the other hand, there could be a summary reversal, since the NYC law is contrary to the federal law on the subject of transporting firearms unloaded and in locked containers. On top of all that, the law is just plain silly and can serve to valid purpose. How is it that a gun being transported between a home and a range inside city limits is safer than one transported to another home or range outside the city? It doesn’t pass the sniff test.
It will not. It will affirm a right to transport a locked and unloaded handgun out of the city.
Federal courts have already ruled that if restrictions on “gun rights” makes a community feel safer, such restrictions are constitutional. It is unlikely the lower courts will be any more mindful of SC dicta than they are now.
“The law” is never a matter of “what is forbidden, and what is permitted.” It is always a matter of “How doe we get around it.?”
“What it will do is affirm a right under the Second outside the home. ”
Nationwide?
This could do what Peruta could not? All 50 states and territories will be required to go shall issue, unless they are ‘Constitutional Carry’ already?
That would be a *very* nice start. And with the ‘firearm owner’s protection act’ (supposedly) protecting transport between states, travel hassles should go bye-bye…
If SCOTUS applies the Commwrce Clause, it could well have the effect of forcing nationwide reciprocity, especially since crossing state lines is a key component. Look at the court’s effect on gay marriage.
I’m honestly surprised NYC hasn’t banned and outlawed all firearm ownership, period. The rule of law is slowly breaking down in America, we see that with jurisdictions and whole states giving the finger to the Federal Government, to which there are apparently no consequences. Perhaps they just haven’t gotten bold enough? NYC’s vile liberal politicians have for years almost completely disregarded the constitution, I’m not sure what’s stopping them from dropping their copy in the paper shredder and going full totalitarian. What can be done to impede them? And what are they waiting for?
NYC makes it so difficult and so expensive and so time consuming that they essentially are banning firearms.
Just like carry licenses in Hawaii, NJ, NYC, etc. they each basically have a ban without the word ban.
Yeah, NYC is essentially a gun ban zone. Even NY state permits (hard enough to get) don’t apply in NYC. The laws are written in such a way that guns aren’t technically banned, and yet for some reason, no one can have one anyway.
By restricting gun use to only local ranges, they can get a list of customers that use these ranges and have a list of local gun owners.
This might be an ideal case to reach the Supreme Court and achieve a pro-RKBA decision, but I have to wonder how much any such decision will really impact anyone outside NYC. It seems that the law being challenged really is an extreme outlier as the petitioners state — but by being so far outside the norm it would seem far too easy for the court to overturn NYC’s ridiculous ban without staking out any new ground in the judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Yes, it is possible that the court might decide to write a decision applying some sweeping new concept, but over a century and a half of cases suggest that the court is much more likely to base a ruling on one or two narrow issues.
That’s what I would suspect- yes, it’s ridiculous enough to sustain a ruling against gun control but the courts seem all too happy to punt on large issues.
Roberts will become the new Kennedy — squishy on 2A rights. It’s just a matter of time before he becomes the new Harry Blackmun, turning from a constructionist Justice to one of those “living Constitution” morons who makes sh!t up as he goes along.
I can’t wait for the definitive Roberts opinion, where he painstakingly explains to us mundanes all about emanations and penumbras and how they’re more important than the actual words.
I thought his writings on Obamacare cases achieved that?
A government tyranny is a tax, therefore it is constitutional.
@LKB and other constitutional law attorneys: Please explain to TTAG readers what your theories are concerning making progress in the courts. Getting cert and getting a desirable opinion is outside the scope of almost all laymen’s experience and we need to understand to set our expectations and to direct our support constructively. So long as we are in the dark we won’t take the initiative to contribute to Second Amendment Foundation or other organizations pursuing cases.
My (a layman) theory is that we ought to begin (i.e., carry-on from Heller, McDonald, Caetano) with a case that raise the most narrow possible issue, and an issue that most outrageously offends the Constitution. I see how this NYC-transport case fits my theory.
It has the smallest substantive footprint. Frankly speaking: Who cares about a handful of NYC gun-owners who want to transport their guns outside the city? No one! No one who matters. And, so, for SCOTUS to grant the prayer for relief will threaten to gore no gun-controller’s sacred ox. On what rationale will a justice vote against granting relief? The plaintiff’s win threatens to open no Pandora’s box. An easy case for SCOTUS to take; an easy case for it to decide.
When the majority writes its opinion it will explain why it finds NYC’s law UN-Constitutional. In so doing, it will expand the scope of the RKBA beyond the home, handguns and arms that are not flintlocks. What, exactly, it might say is hard to predict, and unnecessary to predict. It’s apt to say that the “right to . . . bear arms” includes the right to transport them in a manner that manifests no threat to public safety. That little would be apt to buttress FOPA and undermine the rigid regulation of intra-state transport. For example, in NJ one may only transport a handgun from home-to-range (etc.) in a closed container separate from ammunition. Therefore, a motorist is forbidden to carry a handgun in the trunk routinely in case she is stranded at night on a lightly-traveled highway. Should she not dot her ‘i’s and cross her ‘t’s correctly by closing the container and separating her ammunition, she is in violation. These laws would be struck-down, or be put under a cloud. Not much; but, it would be a small increment of progress.
Is this correct? If not, why is it mistaken? What are the other things that should guide our selection of cases? Once we understand these issues we can all be on the alert for municipal, state and Federal laws that represent good candidates for making a case.
The 2A bar can’t possibly know all the obscure municipal and state laws controlling guns. Yet, collectively, the gun-owner community can – and does – know all these laws. We can think of a scenario where some such law is outrageously irrational and makes for a reasonable candidate. To do so, we need to know the selection criteria; i.e., what would make for an ideal case.
Call me selfish, but it was enough for me to get out of the slave states as soon as I could and make my living in and pay my taxes (local) to a government that didn’t, every time I turned around, try to make everything that wasn’t prohibited, mandatory and subject to; inspection, regulation and taxation. -30-
Enjoy it while it lasts. NH was one of those states and for the next legislative session it will be staring into the MA abyss. We’ll be lucky to get out of 2020 unscathed and then luckier to return to a safe legislature for 2021. So, then I move to ID. It’s only a matter of time before ID goes as CA and WA have. What will be left by then? Kentucky? Arkansas? Maybe. Hopefully I die before I run out of places to run to.
The Balkinization will continue unabated until we have 50 different areas, or more, with unique gun laws. The left hopes to get enough states, cities, and voters on their side to force a federal.law that squashes the rest. By that time it will be too late and the court won’t go against the movement.
You donât realize it do you? All judges hate gun owners.All judges want guns banned. All judges want the government to kill us all. All judges are onboard with disarming is by force and like Salwells fantasy using nukes and exterminating 150 million people to bring about liberal utopia where you have no rights at all. EVERYONE not 100% with the progressive utopia is âunworthy of lifeâ and must be exterminated.
Let me introduce you to Judge O’Scanlain of the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals. He wrote the panel opinion in Peruta overturning California’s “may issue” CCW system on the basis that California bans open carry, and that there must be a way to exercise the right. Wonderful opinion. He was overturned by an en banc panel dominated by democrats, and the SCOTUS declined to grant review. Recently he wrote another equally concise opinion overturning Hawaii’s refusal to issue open carry permits to anyone by security guards. Although bound by Peruta’s opinion that there is no right to a CCW, he again concluded that there must be a method allowing citizens to exercise their rights. You could not ask for a more solid pro-2A opinion. A petition for en ban rehearing is pending, with Hawaii complaining that its law actually does allow the chief of police to issue open carry permits to civilians (and that it doesn’t matter that no chief has ever done so).
Regionalization is the next step in implementing unelected governments. Weâre only a few steps behind Europe, but weâll on our way.
Yawn. Another court case in where the judge(s) side against us every step of the way until SCOTUS refuses to hear it. As per the courts you donât have the right to own a gun or keep it outside your home. In fact to the judge(s) that hear it they probably secretly want Salwellâs nuclear snuff fantasy to happen. Simply put they hate us and want us dead. Just like every other judge in the country.
Actually the trial court sided with us but the court of appeals reversed.
SC jurists know each other quite well. They have a good sense of who will vote which way on almost every matter presented. When considering a case, the likely process is to determine the final vote ahead of time, all the while evaluating which cases are sure to fall which way, and which cases the opposition is not set in concrete. Neither group of “apolitical” jurists wants to test a case the outcome of which is not assured. For instance, consider a situation in which four jurists are rabid anti-gun, and four generally favor “gun rights” and one is reliably squishy. A case arises in which a law is enacted that makes gun oil essentially part of a firearm, and thus special tax is applied. Since this matter would not actually determine anything substantial that either fosters or denies “gun rights”, the four anti-gunners might decide that nothing of significance regarding private ownership of guns is at hand, and signal that they will not directly oppose removal of a special tax on gun rights. In this case, even “squishes” among the sorta pro-gun group can feel free to protect people from excessive taxation, while not really endangering their “squishiness”. OTOH, any definitive “gun rights”review that will put the outcome in doubt would continue to be declined without comment.
All of which maintains the status quo – kicking the can down the line.
A definitive SC ruling favorable to “gun rights” cannot be overturned by simple legislation, whereas federal and state legislation protecting “gun rights” lasts only until the next election.
California made open carry illegal and now the 9th. Circus says concealed carry is illegal so the is no Right “to bear arms” in California.
Well, yes and no. There are numerous exceptions to the open carry ban, and it applies only in urban areas. As the anti-judges like to point out, that leaves all private property and all state and federal forests (millions of acres worth) where open carry is permissible. and by the way, there are at least two cases asking the Ninth to take up the question it left open in Peruta: is their a right to bear outside the home, and what are the parameters of that right? Nichols is one of those cases, the name of the other escapes me. Nichols was argued last February, but even if he succeeds, it only means that there is a right to bear in areas not within the state/federal 1000′ school gun free zones (which pretty much cuts off carry for most urban dwellers outside their property). Being a cynic when it comes to the Ninth, I believe they will eventually rule that the right, such as it is, is subject to mere intermediate scrutiny (which in the Ninth is pretty close to minimal scrutiny in 2A cases) that the State is free to regulate (out of existence) in the interest of public safety. It may mean “may issue” open carry permits, or it may not change anything. We will see at some point.
This “strategy” makes no sense to me.
The case here is so narrow, and the infringement so egregious, that a limited or narrow ruling by the USSC could easily strike down this idiotic NY law while still leaving less egregious and idiotic, but still oppressive, laws intact. Hell, this isn’t a “right to carry” case at all.
How do you hunt in NY outside the city of you live there? It seems you couldn’t take your rifle or shotgun… Just shoot pigeons in the city? I am not familiar with NYC laws, maybe everyone keeps their rifles up state at their hunting cottage?
And why is it the victims, not the city, that is appealing the circuit court decision, when it seems the city has not one half a leg to stand on?
Here ya go, it seems something as onerous at not letting you drive to the range of your choice with an unloaded gun in a locked case in your trunk is an “insignificant” burden:
By a 3-0 vote, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the restrictions on people who have licenses to have guns at home, known as âpremisesâ licenses, did not violate the Second Amendment.
Writing for the appeals court, Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch said the restrictions advanced the cityâs âsubstantial, indeed compellingâ interests in protecting public safety and preventing crime, by regulating firearms possession in public.
Lynch said that was enough to âeasily justify the insignificant and indirect costsâ imposed on gun ownersâ rights, despite a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns.
The wealth disparity in the New York area is so bad that too many people at the top are scared s3tl$*s that the “common” man would be able to keep and bear arms. And you have to remember that the courts are so controlled by that upper class, that if any of the judges ever a thought about arming the masses, well, they just would not have a job now would they.
The city is not appealing because it won.
Good luck with that. Governments, ALL GOVERNMENTS, want their serfs disarmed. France would have a new government right now if it were allowed to be armed.
The courts will never take up the case, they would rather keep it chaotic.
You want to carry a weapon in a left wing state? Your doing it illegally and taking your chances.
Would you rather be tried by twelve or carried by six? Your choice.
Carried by six
How exciting!!!!!
SCOTUS may hear a case where they could possiblly rule that you have a right to a $340 possession license to where you can transport it unloaded to the range to go plinking… what a joke.
It’s traditional. Kavanaugh won’t care. He flat out told Cruz during his confirmation the Constitution means nothing to him and if he likes the effect a ruling has had.
I wish I could find the link but I remember reading an anti-gun article that actually opened with a reference to this stupid law calling it “common sense” and saying that “there are plenty of ranges” in the Boros, and that no one needs to take their gun outside of NYC limits.
Well, they do exist. They’re small, scarce, generally expensive, and probably prone to a shut down and redevelopment.
I belong to a longstanding basement range in NYC that’s affordable right now but the membership cost is rapidly rising (I think I’m paying $250 a year). You’re right about the redevelopment. The current owner of the property seems ok with having the range but all you would need is a change of building ownership and we could get booted.
It would be fun to see an event billed as the nations largest gun show, situated just outside of the New York City Limits.
Is this even enforceable unless you have the permanently erected police barriers to check all vehicles coming in an out of NYC. This would be like establishing a frontier but just for a city. I can just see it, all commercial traffic and civilian transit would come to a halt in an insane effort to enforce this law. NYC Hall bureaucrats, be careful what you wish for, you may get it shoved up your ass and it is going to hurt like a blow torch.
Watch “Escape from New York.”
I always thought of that movie as as a way to improve NYC: wall off Manhattan so hardcore NYC’rs can’t get out.
LKB,
Do you have any thoughts on newly docketed case “Cheeseman v. Polillo?”
See here for their petition for cert:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=%2Fdocket%2Fdocketfiles%2Fhtml%2Fpublic%2F19-27.html
Maybe NYSRPA could also ask a court to consider why the unelected bureaucrats at the Suffolk County Pistol License Section are taking 12-22 months to process pistol license applications, despite the NY Penal Code requirement of 6 months.
NYC pistol permit holder here. We can get a Hunter Authorization Card which allows for the transport of a sidearm outside of the city. It’s annoying because you need to go down to the NYPD license division in Manhattan and show them a hunting license to get it (that means a day off of work for folks like me).
I wonder if this has any bearing on this court decision. I don’t expect consistency from the city government but it seems odd that I can somewhat circumvent the law here by simply purchasing a non-related state license.
If memory serves, when ‘Peruta’ was up for consideration of granting cert., it was re-listed for conference multiple times until the end of the term, when it was finally denied cert.
So don’t panic if it stays ‘in conference’ for a period of time. It may mean discussions are happening behind-the-scenes as to what extent they want to deal with in a ruling…
If you’re waiting for a SCOTUS ruling that is going to go beyond the ambiguity of Heller. Keep waiting, never going to happen. The gun debate like abortion is intentionally a legislative balancing act kept to keep us divided as a nation while the politicians take their cut as the billionaire raiders strip the country clean during the ongoing fire sale. With that said once there’s nothing left to loot, It’s not a question of if the Second Amendment will be torn up but when.
Other than what I’m about to say I have nothing to say. Reading the article I had thought I need to comment on this. I get done and read the comments already posted and thought. I wont comment. Why? Because everyone here had pretty much summed up everything. Mainly what I hadn’t thought of. And did so in a thoughtful manner.
Thanks, and good work everyone. This is the manner for which I wish all debates went. However, I’m not delusional. God Bless
Not content with dictating what you may or may not do in NYC, they have decided to dictate what you may or may not do outside of their jurisdiction, in NYC.
From time to time the mask slips.
What mask? Come on, they’re not even trying to hide it any more!
When it comes to NY’s Domestic Enemies of the Constitution, in the war for total control over the people, as far as they’re concerned they’ve already won – no need to be sly about it any longer.
“After all, what are those disarmed peons going to do to us? HA ha hahahaha!”
And yes, as others have been saying – what happened to the Edit/Delete Comment buttons, TTAG?
Unfortunately the brief for Writ of Certiorari for SCOTUS on behalf of the Petitioners fails to mention or take into consideration that a “premise” license is not the only singular and exclusive license that can be held by a person who is a possessor of the firearm and that other licenses and permits can apply to the same firearm from other jurisdictions outside of the incorporated areas of the City of New York such as other adjacent states to NY state thus strengthening the Commerce Clause argument.
I am speaking from personal experience in this case since while I held a NYC “premise” license I also held a Concealed Carry License and Permits from the states of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida, and these states did not require the “registration” of the serial numbers of any firearms but covered all firearms, up-to a limit of one at a time on a person in some states.
If I still resided in NYC then I would have had “standing” for this case and could have been added to this suit to add these additional points of argument to leverage the fundamental right of free travel between states that are adjacent to the State of New York (PA, CT) in which I held Concealed Carry Licenses and could travel legally to them to cross state lines under the Commerce Clause [USCONST (I)(8)(3)].
I no longer live in NYC so I had to surrender my license through certified mail with return receipt along with a letter stating the new location of all my registered firearms with the NYPD and their new location and a personally added firm statement that they are now outside of their jurisdiction. I never received a reply that they confirmed their receipt of my “premise” license but when I went to visit them I stopped by 1 Police Plaza in downtown Manhattan and chatted with the very nice ladies that work in the licensing division and after being invited to the private area in the back where they do in-person interviews at their desk, I saw on their computers that they received my license and marked it as received along with all the firearm serial numbers as transferred out of NYC.
(FYI, I have always liked going to the licensing division and dealing with the NYPD officers working there since they were always very nice and polite to me every single time I had to visit them for a renewal, a new purchase permit, and to inspect and register a new firearm in person. Same for the rifle division in Queens. Very nice and pleasant people working there who liked seeing the toys that we would bring in and ask us questions about them and the wait was never very long and I got to chat with other gun owners about the hobby and their collections.)