New York State Rifle & Pistol v City of New York
courtesy NYSRPA

By Second Amendment Foundation

The Second Amendment Foundation today cheered the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to move forward with a case that challenges a New York City gun law that was so restrictive the city amended it, and then tried to get the high court to dismiss the case.

“We’re delighted that the Supreme Court will move this important case forward,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus brief in support of overturning this egregious attempt to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. We are confident that the high court will ultimately rule in favor of Second Amendment rights.”

The city scrambled to change the law once the court decided to accept the case for review earlier this year. The challenge is brought by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association.

“It’s outrageous that the city has furiously tried to derail this case by changing the law,” Gottlieb stated. “That says volumes not only about the city’s fear of having to defend their restrictive gun control law before the court, but it also suggests to us that the city knew all along their law would not pass the constitutional smell test under any level of scrutiny, and they panicked.

“New York, and other state and local governments, have been getting away with adopting ridiculously oppressive gun regulations because lower courts have thumbed their noses at previous Supreme Court rulings in favor of the Second Amendment,” he added.

“Equally outrageous, if not moreso,” Gottlieb observed, “was the attempt by Capitol Hill Democrats led by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to bully the high court by filing a brief to dismiss the case or face the possibility that Democrats would pack the court. How dare Whitehouse and his associates attempt such coercion. We’re proud of the Supreme Court justices for ignoring this threat to their independence as a separate branch of government.

“The Democrats’ political demagoguery obviously backfired, and rightly so,” he said. “It just might cost them in November 2020.”

 

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

32 COMMENTS

  1. Yes, it is true. Bad law emits a foul and odorous wind.

    Not unlike the donkey in Shrek, that time he ate some rotten berries ….

  2. I don’t believe that Democrats’ political demagoguery cost them 2020. I think that Trump has good odds to win 2020, but the rhetoric to pack the court was a flash in the pan compared to the current pile being stewed for voters’ consumption.

      • No chance. It would screw them several ways. One they would be out of office next election. Two the GOP would stack back and then maybe limit the ability to change the court. Plus the left has more to lose with a stacked court that would be hyper partisan.

  3. Good things are coming out of a great economy, if these gun groups are prospering as much as the president, we are in good hands. I am a life member of three of these groups

  4. C’mon, squash this law. Then let it be shouted from the rooftops as precedent to go after CA’s infringements.

  5. But I still won’t be able to own a modern sporting rifle and have to go through a anal exam to touch a pistol.

    • Oh, hey. You must live in upstate NY too. Just ignore our asinine gun laws and admire the pretty autumn leaves.

    • You can own one, you just can’t have some features that do almost nothing to impact the actual functionality of the gun. While that shows what a stupid law it is, it at least allows you to still legally own basically the same AR as you could before.

      I know quite a few people who went and created an AR ‘pistol’ as an extra FU to the laws in NY by making it as scary looking as possible and fixing the magazine but carrying around some california loaders instead.

      • Not going to lie if not for being a horrendous waste of money I would make a 458 or 50 fixed mags pistol just to mess with the county clerk. Also the Thurston gen 2 stock is actually really comfortable once you get past how stupid it looks.

      • No I can’t. There are plenty of semi-auto rifles you can’t own. Like all of them except a neutered AR and a ruger mini-14. I don’t want some neutered AR that you can’t remove a magazine from. That makes it worthless to train with and useless if you have a malfunction in a life or death situation. If more New Yorker’s put their foot down and stopped pretending they had freedoms maybe something would get done. Apathy and bargaining is the death of freedom in NY and the country in the near future.

  6. Of course, they know it and they thought they would be slick by offering something else until they thought nobody would be looking and, BAM, resubmit it. WE absolutely need a ruling on its constitutionality.

    • The new law is hardly less offensive, but NYC and NYS figured it would be at least five years before a lawsuit on the new law would reach the high court. And that is long enough, they hoped, for a democrat to become president.

  7. “Equally outrageous, if not moreso,” Gottlieb observed, “was the attempt by Capitol Hill Democrats led by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to bully the high court by filing a brief to dismiss the case or face the possibility that Democrats would pack the court. How dare Whitehouse and his associates attempt such coercion. We’re proud of the Supreme Court justices for ignoring this threat to their independence as a separate branch of government.

    Anyone ever wonder why these senators chose this particular case, out of dozens, to file this sort of brief?

    • No, no wonders. The fear is that the Court will 1) set a standard of review applicable to all 2A cases that is far more strict (even if it is not strict scrutiny) than the essentially “rational basis” test being applied by the anti courts under the rubric of “intermediate scrutiny”, and 2) recognize “bear” as a fundamental constitutional right, as implied by Scalia in Heller.

      • And we won’t know if the “attempt” was successful, until the decision is handed down next June.

        I expect Roberts to roll over the same way when Obama ordered the court not to dismantle his pet ‘ObamaCare’ legislation. And sure as shit, Roberts delivered the goods by calling it a ‘tax’.

        I’m not setting myself up for a bitter disappointment, remember how good we felt after the oral arguments in that one? How skeptical Roberts sounded on the bench?

        “Danger! Will Robinson!”…

        • The assumed logic behind Roberts’ declaration of the ACA penalty being a “tax” was to expose the fact that the penalty had been inserted into the final bill by the Senate, whereas only the House has the power to do so. The ACA would therefore be argued as unconstitutional on its face due to improper passage through Congress. I heard arguments from a few separate constitutional attorneys explaining this and stating that motions to file were being started. Haven’t heard anything further on the matter, though, once the Repubs were able to nullify the penalty (which, unfortunately, can be reversed and reinstated if/when the Dems regain control).

  8. A bit premature for cheering. The mootness issue has still to be decided, and the court has included this as one of the issues to be argued in December. Due process and all that on a potentially conclusive issue. It still could go either way.

    • If the court was at all inclined to declare the case moot, I think they would have done it by now and saved themselves and everyone else some time and effort. The fact that they let the case proceed, as I see it, is pretty much confirmation that moot is off the table and this case will go the distance.

  9. EVERY anti gun law is Un-Constitutional, as in “Shall not Be Infringed. WHY are these laws ? allowed to be installed anywhere, in ANY State ? WHY do we have to go through all this BS, especially in New York & Mexafornia to exercise a G-D given & Constitutional RIGHT ? We are Sheep being governed & controlled by Wolves. WHY does 1 Party want to dis-arm Americans, could it be they have an ulterior motive ???

    The two enemies of the people are Criminals and Government, so let us tie down the second with the chains of the Constitution so the second does not become a legalized version of the first. – Thomas Jefferson

    • Huh?

      SCOTUSblog.com
      October 7th, 2019
      “Today the justices made clear that the case will move forward: They rejected the city’s request to dismiss the case as moot immediately, instead announcing that the “question of mootness will be subject to further consideration, and the parties should be prepared to discuss it.”
      preview.tinyurl.com/yyebewn6

  10. This should be passed to protect the US Constitution. And it’s amendments entotal.
    Any and all violations attempted or achieved by any person ,elected official, employees of any government body, and or citizen or non-citizen shall be punishable by firing squad at town square, if no square, first brick wall, on the third day, at sun up.
    To be judged by the people it would affect most harmfully.

  11. Maybe Mr. Gottlieb is rooting on this case so this bales his pathetic lawyer in Illinois out from all his bad performances and losses

  12. It never did pass any reasonable “smell test” or any other text for that matter. How the city’s legislative hogwash, the state’s too for that matter has to date avoided a court test and the application of Strict Scrutiny has never ceased to amaze me. By the way, I was born, raised and lived for a while in NYC, departing that vale of tears in 1967, without a backward glance.

  13. In case you hadn’t noticed or had somehow forgotten, New York has been screwing the law abiding citizenry since 1911, the year that saw passage of The Sullivan Law.

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