From [HERE] New York defeated an attempt by gun-rights proponents to stop it from enforcing new restrictions on who and where people can carry concealed weapons.

US District Judge Glenn Suddaby in Syracuse rejected the request by Gun Owners of America Inc. and others for an order to halt the roll-out of the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act.

New York Attorney General Letitia James hailed the judge’s ruling. James is a black strawboss and tireless rolebot working hard for her white masters.

“Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,” she said in a prepared statement.

The case is Antonyuk v. Bruen, 22-cv-00734, U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York (Syracuse). 

Liberals overwhelmingly seem to prefer slavery or greater restrictions in the free range prison.

The Supreme Court made it clear that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in public. The court clearly stated;

Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms. As we explained in Heller, the “textual elements” of the Second Amendment’s operative clause— “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be in- fringed”—“guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. Heller further confirmed that the right to “bear arms” refers to the right to “wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.”

This definition of “bear” naturally encompasses public carry. Most gun owners do not wear a holstered pistol at their hip in their bedroom or while sitting at the dinner table. Although individuals often “keep” firearms in their home, at the ready for self-defense, most do not “bear” (i.e., carry) them in the home beyond moments of actual confrontation. To confine the right to “bear” arms to the home would nullify half of the Second Amendment’s operative protections.

Moreover, confining the right to “bear” arms to the home would make little sense given that self-defense is “the central component of the [Second Amendment] right itself.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 599; see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767. After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an “individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” Heller, 554 U. S., at 592, and confrontation can surely take place outside the home.

Although we remarked in Heller that the need for armed self-defense is perhaps “most acute” in the home, id., at 628, we did not suggest that the need was insignificant else- where. Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it. See Moore v. Madigan, 702 F. 3d 933, 937 (CA7 2012) (“[A] Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower”). The text of the Second Amendment reflects that reality.

The Second Amendment’s plain text thus presumptively guarantees petitioners Koch and Nash a right to “bear” arms in public for self-defense.

The new law bans handguns in places of a “sensitive nature,” which overbroadly includes all churches/places of worship, government buildings, all public parks, all kinds of schools, all public transit (apparently including all vehicles for hire (cabs/Uber/limo)), hospitals, shelters, residential group homes, nursing homes, and medical facilities, among others. It also prohibits law abiding citizens from carrying a handgun in Times Square.

The law defines all public transportation as a “sensitive place.” Among many other things, specifically it states,

A sensitive location shall mean:

any place, conveyance, or vehicle used for public transportation or public transit, subway cars, train cars, buses, ferries, railroad, omnibus, marine or aviation transportation; or any facility used for or in connection with service in the transportation of passengers, airports, train stations, subway and rail stations, and bus terminals;

any place owned or under the control of federal, state or local government, for the purpose of government administration, including courts;

any gathering of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble;

any place of worship or religious observation;

all libraries, public playgrounds, public parks, and zoos; NY’s new law violates the 2nd Amendment because there is no longstanding historical tradition of regulating peaceable public carry on public transportation, in churches, all government buildings and schools regardless of their nature as required by the new Supreme Court holding. Also, the ban on guns is unconstitutional because the Court explained that merely because a place is crowded does not make it a “sensitive place” worthy of stripping people the right to defend themselves with a handgun.

The Court explained, “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”

The sensitive places doctrine is an exception to the general right to the peaceable possession and carry of arms. The Court is guided by the history around the time of the creation of the 2nd Amendment to determine whether a gun is valid because the right to carry arms is considered to be a “pre-existing right.” Said history according to the Court and legal scholars is that carrying “common weapons” was an offense only when done in a manner “apt to terrify” people. [MORE] The Court ruled that there must be a “longstanding” history of “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”

Whether a place is a “sensitive place” is determined by historical record and/or particular place’s sensitive government interests or vulnerabilities. A longstanding history exists if there ‘are no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions.” Constitutional law professor David Kopel explained that ‘factors which make places “sensitive” might be a place where most persons therein are minors (K-12 schools), places that concentrate adversarial conflict and can generate passionately angry emotions (courthouses, legislatures, polling places), or buildings containing people at acute personal risk of being targets of assassination (many government buildings). The answer cannot be that the places are crowded. Sometimes they are, but no more so than a busy downtown sidewalk, and sidewalks are not sensitive places.’

NY’s gun ban on public transportation and in churches is unconstitutional because there is apparently no longstanding historical record of prohibiting peaceable gun carry on public transportation or in church. To the contrary, the post-Independence historical record shows that peaceable carry when leaving the home was encouraged and often legally required by statute for safety. Kopel states,

“Post-independence, Americans were contemptuous of what they considered to be the constricted nature of the English right to arms. Madison said so in his speech introducing the Second Amendment in Congress. . . “Americans certainly did not think that bringing guns to town was a problem; to the contrary, laws typically required that arms be brought to churches or to all public meetings. Nor were there echoes of Henry VIII’s restrictions about loaded guns on the highways. Instead, statutes required arms carrying when traveling or away from home. Carrying firearms when going anywhere was normal in many parts of the United States.”

NY’s gun ban on public transportation also overburdens an individual right to carry - as anyone wishing to exercise his right could only do so while on foot or while driving/riding a bike to be wherever they want to be. An estimated 54% of households in New York City do not own a car, and rely on public transportation everyday. [MORE] All such persons, millions of people, would not be able to defend themselves with a gun in case of a confrontation, a core purpose of the 2nd Amendment. As such, said right is rendered 2nd class status under NY’s new law.

At any rate, ‘It is difficult to justify extending the “sensitive places” doctrine to places that are not schools or government buildings because there are few “longstanding” restrictions on other places.’ [MORE]

Nevertheless, NY’s ban in all government buildings and schools is also unconstitutional. Although the Court has ruled that government schools and government buildings may be “sensitive places,” it never said all government buildings and all types of schools without regard to their nature and quality of business could meet such a designation. It’s obvious that all government buildings are not equal. Free standing public bathrooms, libraries, homeless shelters, DMV branch locations, sanitation dept etc for instance clearly rank low on the “sensitivity scale” compared to buildings like a courthouse or the Pentagon - - and far too low to strip an individual of his “guaranteed” right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals stated,

The White House lawn, although not a building, is just as sensitive as the White House itself. Consequently, the presumption of lawfulness for a regulation penalizing firearm possession there might approach the categorical. At the spectrum’s other end we might find a public park associated with no particular sensitive government interests—or a post office parking lot surrounding a run-of-the- mill post office. Perhaps such locations are “sensitive” in the sense that the government always has an interest in protecting its property or visitors. But without more concrete evidence of particular vulnerability, any presumption of lawfulness for a firearms regulation cannot control. Bonidy v. U.S. Postal Service, 790 F.3d 1121, 1138 (10th Cir. 2015).

Furthermore, Kopel explains that arms bans in all “schools” have very weak historical lineage.” As such NY’s blanket ban in all public and private schools and “their grounds” (which includes parking lots), including schools for professional adults, art students, private career schools, all colleges and universities is unconstitutional - as such places are not sensitive places.

Additionally, there is no legal or historical support for banning weapons in all public parks. [MORE] Federal and state courts have already struck similar prohibitions. The Supreme Court of Illinois held that a law prohibiting individuals from carrying or possessing arms within 1,000 feet of a public park violates the Second Amendment. The court disregarded the government’s argument that the public park was a sensitive place and it found that “the law severely burdened the core of the right to bear arms, because it prohibited the carriage of weapons for self-defense and it affected the entire law-abiding population of Illinois.” [MORE]. While it would appear that the federal government can regulate the possession of guns on “Its property” - but it cannot ban it.

Lastly, the NY prohibition of guns in Times Square appears to be a baseless unconstitutional contradiction to the Supreme Court ruling last month. Any busy downtown sidewalk may crowded — but sidewalks are not sensitive places. [MORE] The Court made it plain that merely because a place is crowded or busy does not magically transform it into a sensitive place. Explicitly rejecting such illogic, speaking for the Court Justice Thomas explained,

In their view, “sensitive places” where the government may lawfully disarm law-abiding citizens include all “places where people typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other public-safety professionals are presumptively available.” It is true that people sometimes congregate in “sensitive places,” and it is likewise true that law enforcement professionals are usually presumptively available in those locations. But expanding the category of “sensitive places” simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of “sensitive places” far too broadly. Respondents’ argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to pub- licly carry arms for self-defense that we discuss in detail below. See Part III–B, infra. Put simply, there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place” simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department. [MORE]