News/Commentary

Major blow for gun rights: Supreme Court under fire for rejecting plea of NY gun retailers

January 19, 2023 | | Print Article

For the second time in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid to block new gun control laws in the Empire State which retailers say violate the Second Amendment and will put them out of business.

The high court on Wednesday declined to issue a temporary injunction against sweeping new firearm laws put in place by New York’s Attorney General Letitia James, following the Supreme Court’s repeal of a 1913 New York law that forced gun owners to prove “proper cause” to obtain a concealed carry permit.

The move comes just one week after the court rejected a separate bid brought by gun rights activists.

As American Wire previously reported, following the repeal of the nearly 110-year-old rule, New York Governor Kathy Hochul called a special legislative session and announced in June that she would circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling and ban weapons from a slew of “sensitive places,” including government buildings, hospitals, schools, and public transit.

 

Under New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), guns would be prohibited from any business that doesn’t have a sign posted that expressly welcomes firearms inside, and strict background checks would be required to purchase ammunition for any gun that requires a permit.

Aaron Dorr, the executive director of the New York State Firearms Association, called the measures “absurd” and “unconstitutional.”

“She’s telling business owners how they need to conduct their business if they want to stay open,” he told the Daily Mail at the time. “These are unconstitutional mandates, and I think it’ll be struck down by the courts.”

“No criminal is going to walk into a retail store to purchase ammunition,” Dorr said. “This is an absurd attempt to demonize law-abiding gun owners one more time.”

James issued a celebratory statement following the Supreme Court’s disappointing decision — one for which the justices gave no explanation or noted dissents — in which she said the CCIA “strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive places, requires individuals with concealed carry permits to request a property owner’s consent to carry on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases.”

“We are disappointed that not one of the nine justices saw fit to grant the plaintiffs some stay of enforcement of the new laws against them,” Paloma Capanna, the lead attorney for the New York gun retailers, told Fox News Digital following the decision.

“We are challenging the ability of the state of New York to target dealers in firearms in the lawful stream of commerce, to put them out of business, which is what the new laws will do,” Capanna continued. “So it really was unfortunate to see that we couldn’t get any emergency temporary injunction against those laws.”

James, of course, had a different take.

“Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to allow our state’s gun safety laws to remain in effect,” she said in the statement. “We all see the heart-wrenching news from communities throughout New York state about the lives that are lost to senseless gun violence. We know that gun safety laws help save lives, and keep our state safer. My office will continue to work tirelessly to stand up for New York’s gun safety laws and we will use every tool at our disposal to protect New Yorkers.”

“Today, the Supreme Court allowed New York’s concealed carry gun law to remain in effect pending appeal,” she wrote on Twitter. “We have a right to enact commonsense measures that protect our communities and save lives, and we will continue to defend this law.”

But, according to Capanna, the CCIA’s new record-keeping laws are tantamount to an unconstitutional gun registry.

“The list of new mandatory compliance even goes so far as a turnover of acquisition and disposition records… which the state of New York attorneys have admitted will be used to create the first-ever gun owners registry housed at the New York State Police,” she said on Wednesday.

Melissa Fine
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