New York Democrats Undermine Supreme Court 2nd Amendment Ruling In New Legislation
Among other things, lawful concealed carry of guns would be banned almost everywhere by designating much of society a “sensitive” location. State governors like Kathy Hochul in New York are banking on the limited SCOTUS docket to evade the ruling, even if they ultimately lose.
When the Supreme Court Struck Down The Restrictive New York Gun Licensing Law, it was an important reiteration of 2nd Amendment protections. But the battles will continue at the state level and the lower federal courts, because the opponents of the 2nd Amendment are hard at work, including in Rhode Island, to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights. DOJ already has signaled that it will do whatever it can to limit the impact of the SCOTUS ruling.
One aspect of the SCOTUS ruling that is underreported is that in orders entered by the Court in other cases, it vacated anti-2nd Amendment lower court decisions and remanded for further proceedings. Some of those cases involved the types of limitations, e.g. on magazine capacity and age, that are at the core of efforts to undermine the SCOTUS decision in blue states.
The Gun Rights Foundation has a good summary:
The Supreme Court just struck down four anti-gun lower court rulings:
- A 4th Circuit ruling upholding Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban
- Two rulings (9th Circuit and 3rd Circuit) upholding mag bans in California and New Jersey
- A 9th Circuit ruling upholding Hawaii’s de facto public carry ban (similar to New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. HI is another may issue state that essentially banned carry)
SCOTUS granted cert in all four of these decisions, and told the lower courts “You got it wrong in all of these. We’re striking down your opinions. Go do it again, and do it based on the actual text of the Second Amendment and the history/tradition of the right to keep and bear arms.”
Essentially, those courts have to review those state laws in light of Bruen and issue new rulings using the new “text, history, and tradition” framework.
They may try to wriggle out of it (they almost certainly will) but if they obey the Supreme Court, there’s no way any of these state laws can withstand actual Second Amendment scrutiny.
This spells doom for mag bans, assault weapons bans, and public carry bans.
While this analysis makes sense legally, remember it took over a decade for SCOTUS to take up another major 2nd Amendment case after Heller and McDonald.
A reader sent me a copy of new gun legislation introduced in New York that sets up a series of barriers that will completely undermine the SCOTUS ruling. The NY Times reports, N.Y. Democrats to Pass New Gun Laws in Response to Supreme Court Ruling:
One week after the Supreme Court struck down a law limiting the spread of concealed handguns in New York, state Democratic leaders on Friday were expected to respond with new measures that would prohibit people from carrying firearms in many public settings deemed “sensitive places.”
The ban would apply to places like colleges, hospitals, subways, parks, stadiums and even Times Square — a last-minute addition in the late-night negotiations. It would also extend to any private property, such as a bar, restaurant or home, unless the property owner expressly allows guns, which they can do by placing a sign on their premises….
Legislative leaders and the governor appeared to have reached an agreement on a list of locations where guns would be banned: health care facilities; houses of worship; colleges and universities; places where children gather, such as schools, day care centers, playgrounds, parks and zoos; public transportation; places where alcohol or cannabis is consumed; and theaters, concerts, casinos and other entertainment venues….
Ms. Hochul said that the expansive list of places where guns would be banned was crafted to reassure New Yorkers “that when they go there to gather, work, places of worship, polling places and larger gathering spaces, they don’t need to worry about someone being right there next to them having a weapon.”
I fully expected this would be a tactic, since SCOTUS recognizes restrictions in sensitive places, make almost everywhere sensitive. Criminals, you know the ones who shoot and kill people, will still carry their illegal guns in all these places.
But wait, there’s more, SCOTUS struck down the prior law as giving too much discretion to the state, but the new legislation has plenty of fuzzy, judgmental standards that reestablish discretion. The Times continues:
The gun bill adds new requirements for New Yorkers to receive a concealed carry permit, including 16 hours of training on how to handle a handgun, two hours of firing range training, an in-person interview and a written exam, as well as a review of social media accounts.
The legislation clearly is intended to thwart the SCOTUS decision, guaranteeing more litigation. State governors like Kathy Hochul in New York are banking on the limited SCOTUS docket to evade the ruling, even if they ultimately lose, in the interim they have violated citizens’ constitutional rights. Expect similar tactics in all blue states.
Update
The New York legislature, at Hochul’s behest, rushed to pass Senate Bill 51001–the legislative vehicle for New York’s desperate, flailing temper tantrum of a response to Bruen–before legislators, or the public, were able to review the text of the bill. https://t.co/VargbZDPwB
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) July 2, 2022
Also can’t carry on public transportation or in any business that does not post a sign saying it’s OK. So basically, you cannot actually carry. The entire scheme is a willful and knowing evasion of a constitutional right. #RuleOfLaw https://t.co/nvYYWxr1A7
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) July 2, 2022
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Comments
I fully expected this would be a tactic
Ummm, didn’t the court, too? Didn’t they explicitly warn states NOT to do exactly this?
(Any place where alcohol is served seems a big stretch – eliminating ALL restaurants.)
Here are the real questions:
Why should we wait for SCOTUS to rule again, since this is clearly in defiance of their very constitutional decision?
What CAN we do to stop this, within the law?
Congress certainly won’t invoke the “republican form of government” clause. They are in the bag with NY, CA, and HI. The SCOTUS doesn’t have any enforcement arm. The DOJ is corrupted by anti-constitutionalism.
The only enforcement mechanism left is the people.
The aggrieved can sue. In this case, since the law seems like a deliberate affront to the recent court ruling, the court should expedite any review so that New York can’t perpetually enact unconstitutional laws in order to continually frustrate a legal right to bear arms.
Everyone, Anyone seeking a gun permit in NY should be taking their lawyer when filing. No NYS County Clerk will be certain what the new rules apply as technically, as of the SCOTUS ruling, none of the NY rules apply for a permit to carry. Let the lawsuits begin Thursday on the day Hochul feels she has the right to invoke her version of the same current ones which take actions with when, where and how gun carry will be permitted. Hochul is doing a 180 to overrule the SCOTUS rulings on gun carry permitting. There are approx. 62 county clerks in the state. Is the state prepared to be taken back to court? Is the state prepared to have the Federal government come in to take oversight and compliance in their County offices? Because that’s where Hochul is headed. As did the Fed. go into the South when the states did not want to put de-segregation into their public schools and when they put up roadblocks up for being able to register and vote and maintained a presence for many years. You do not get to have states taking constitutional laws and rules and deciding which you want to uphold. There are provisions to add and amend the U.S. Constitution as there is in the states. Hochul is giving the finger to both the Federal and State government. Less she has forgotten in desire for getting elected to pick up where Cuomo left off…..We are a Republic of States United.
You miss the point, I think. She isn’t instituting restricting the right of people to get a permit to carry. She is going after where they can carry. I think she and the Dems in NY are being too cute by half and it will immediately be struck down for what it is.
Actually, she is restricting the right to get a permit but increasing the already onerous requirements: a 16 hour training class that includes instruction on the new law restrictions on sensitive areas, requiring references to confirm good moral character, and several other provisions that seem to fly in the face of the ruling.
Appeal directly to the Appeals court for an injunction. Scrap all their rules and line-drawing until they find there way to something constitutional.
Unless the federal government enforces the Supreme Court’s ruling, the court has no way to enforce the ruling.
We can be Certain the Biden administration is not going to send in federal troops to enforce pro gun laws.
James will strike this law down, and then NY will pass the ones they have in reserve for just this situation.
New York can do this until we finally get a Trump or Desantis administration.
Most states with relatively liberal conceal carry, bar it in bars, but not restaturants. What NY is doing is intended to make conceal carry almost impossible.
…for law abiding citizens.
Not to mention my house…
“We only want to keep people from carrying guns in sensitive areas.”
“So what are sensitive areas?”
“Our state.”
When I read the draft this AM I was at a loss to think of a category of places that were not “sensitive” and came up only with my home and those of friends or family who did not object. That flies in the face of the court saying you couldn’t say all of Manhattan was off limits. It’s not just outrageous but a slap in the face to the idea that we are a nation of laws and to the authority of the SC.
We haven’t been a nation of laws for a few years now. A nation of laws doesn’t have a two tier system: often biased justice for the people and just us for the elites.
Look on the bright side, at least the draft statute doesn’t require you, friends and family to post signage on your homes stating that concealed carry is allowed, Do I really need this? OK – /s
Agreed.
Hey, this is a positive development.
“IT’S A TRAP!”, and they fell right into it.
1. Don’t count on SCOTUS pushing this off the end of their docket. Gun groups are going to be all over this like flies on Hochul. They have no bigger priority.
2. It immediately brings up before the court one of the two STUPID and unnecessary dicta in Heller about “sensitive places” and “not all guns,” both of which should never have been uttered, and both of which will now be forced to be defined.
3. None of this screws people in actual America. (Sorry, upstaters, take one for the team.)
The SCOTUS pushed off granting cert for almost two decades because the those who would have voted for taking up a 2A case worried that Kennedy and/or Rogers would have switched sides and overturned both Heller and McDonald, THAT court is no longer and I suspect challenges will move at something faster than the normal glacial pace of Federal appeals.
Roberts – a brain phart this morning.
Are there at least some democrats in NY state who will vote no?
Is it even possible the vote will be against the bill?
Not a line of coke’s chance at a Hunter Biden party. they have a super majority and most of the Dems in the assembly would like door to door searches for confiscation.
The anarchy and crime in NY are biblically and literally God’s wrath.
Well, if the government isn’t going to obey constitutional law, why should we obey their unconstitutional substitutes? If the only people are criminals, it may be time to expand the alternative underground economy?
Nothing is working right now in our banana republic, especially the government. They are planning to arrest us all eventually no matter what we do, even the useful fools. Time for our own BBB plan: beans, bunkers and bullets,
“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Proposed NY law to include,
“a review of social media accounts.as well as a review of social media accounts”
So, in NY exercising your First Amendment guarantee for free speech could thwart/deny if the lefty review your CC permit application doesn’t like the way you think.
These cat-n-mouse games remind me of trying to kill the Python’s Black Knight, at 01:55,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U
Errata,
So, in NY exercising your First Amendment guarantee for free speech could thwart/deny/nullify your Second Amendment guarantee if the lefty reviewing your CC permit application doesn’t like the way you think.
Rasputin too proved to be a tough one to do in.
Echoing a phrase he has often used in exasperation, Justice Thomas explained that “the constitutional right [should be guarantee] to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’”
I am really tired of this bi-itch.
She will hold that office for as long as possible and New York (city) will be the ones keeping her there.
If endorsing your unkind & misogynist comment is wrong …
I don’t wanna’ be right.
What we have here is a new (arguably the third) Reconstruction, and as before, the slave states are going to have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into modernity.
During our last Reconstruction, during the Civil Rights Era, southern states’ relentless efforts to subvert voting rights for black citizens led to new federal laws that subjected those states to special judicial oversight. No new changes to voting laws or regulations could take effect until after a review by the feds. I would suggest something similar for gun rights.
I sure wouldn’t. The feds are no prize. You’re talking BATF here. The Briar Patch.
Obviously, there’s a lot of housecleaning to be done. The federal bureaucracy needs to be moved out of deep-blue DC and diffused among the states. Several agencies (BATFE) need to be disbanded altogether, and many others (FBI) gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.
It’s not happening.
The only way it will happen is if we move out of the federal bureacracy.
Relatedly, NY has just enacted preclearance for changes in voting rules, against segregated voting entities (maybe my town or county “qualifies”) or those with any election based lawsuits in the past 25 years. It will go into effect in about 3 years, but it’s all passed and signed.
The communists never stop, they are full of energy. They may succeed in getting me to leave the state. I don’t think I would put up with living under preclearance. It’s poison for the soul, just as it’s designed to be.
California is trying to do the same thing with a bill. They also have something about medication while carrying – and no, not being under the influence of, say, cocaine. You take testosterone for low T? Yeah, you’re breaking the law if you carry. Prescribed drugs that help people lose weigh? Illegal if you carry. Any perceptible amount of alcohol or controlled substance – not legally impaired.
Made a threat of violence to someone in the past 10 years, whatever that means? You cannot carry.
Lots of barriers tyrants are so happy to throw in your way.
High blood pressure? Cholesterol? Diabetes? Blood thinners?
Wow.
Next it’ll be hemmoroids.
It’s already hemorrhoids. These progressives are a pain in the a**..
It’s okay, they can resist all they want, but resistance is futile. That’s because, for the first time possibly ever, the zeitgeist is actually against them.
The presumption that private property is gun-free unless explicitly opted into is a step too far–could see an opt-out by posting signage similar to Wisconsin’s law.
The training steps seem deliberately burdensome. Some modest gun safety training requirements might be reasonable and maybe even a good idea, but the constellation of requirements taken together along with subjective reviews of things like social media look like an attempt to just block the licensee altogether.
Yes – because they would essentially be exempting much of NYC, in particular, from the 2nd Amdt. Similar with subways and Times Square. You can carry outdoors in upstate NY, but don’t think about it getting to or from work in NYC.
Training itself can be used to block the licensee altogether.
You cannot base a right on the state’s approval, as rights are protections against the state.
The only way you can remove it is due process, applied against individuals one at a time, for cause.
Exactly!! Do we need training to exercise our 1A rights of speech, dissemination of speech, or practice of religion?
New NY law: you must have 16hrs of Microsoft Word training in order to publish speech on the internet.
I say that (I believe it). However, I was in Las Vegas with my brother and went to firing range to play with new toys. Two women next to us didn’t know the first things about guns. Their target, literally, at 15 yards was without a blemish. The whole nine yards: wrong foot forward; wrong grip; wrong sighting (I think they believed only the front sight is important); jerked the trigger; scared of the boom. I knew all that by the time I was ten. It’s not something the govt should be able to issue “one size fits all.”
BUT, they were at the range. So they wanted to practice/play. And right there is the opportunity to step up and evangelize and indoctrinate.
“Ma’am? Can I make a suggestion or two?”
People are dying daily in NYC because criminals have no fear that any person they choose to victimize will be armed and no one near by either.
The government of NY and NYC is ok with that since they identify with victimizers since that is what they are.
They are supposed to be sheep dogs but they are just more wolves.
The common visual is that the government wants the people to be sheep and for themselves to be shepherds.
The new visual is now becoming apparent to everybody. The people are actually mice, and the government are snake breeders.
This law, which a governor who supports the terrible NY “bail reform” laws. should be declared unconstitutional on its face
“Limited docket” is not the reason there were 10 years between 2A decisions. A court, that was largely hostile to the 2A is. The 2A friendly justices knew better than to accept imperfect cases. Any flaw would set them up for a 5/4 defeat. and stare decisis would then set back 2A rights for decades or longer.
With the new make up of the court, small imperfections should not be as much of a limiting factor. With the precedent of Dobbs in hand, it should be much smoother sailing to get cert on these cases. They will still have to wind their way through the system, but once they do, I expect the Supreme Court to take more of them on.
Indeed, this is a foolishly shortsighted plan. The CT has a majority growing weary of NY attempting to violate the rights of their Citizens. They are unlikely to be impressed by this action. NY may be setting themselves up to have the issue of ‘sensitive places’ narrowed by the CT so much so that it becomes irrelevant.
At first blush, why these places? Are high rates of crime occurring there? If so that’s an argument FOR carry. Does the State always provide enhanced patrol assignments 24/7/365 to these locations in order to protect them based on their ‘sensitivity’? Doubtful.
Next apply ‘disparate impact theory’ to how these places were chosen as ‘sensitive’. Is there a racial and ethnic over or under representation? If so why does NY engage in establishing sensitive areas with a clear bias?
First, it should be 24/7/52 – hours in a day/days in a week/ weeks in a year. The other way is redundant.
Yes, I’m an engineer. Why do you ask? :p
Second… The argument of “sensitive places” has always been problematic for me. Why would churches be “sensitive”? The primary argument I’ve heard is “they should be places of peace.” Well, that’s why Colt called his firearm the Peacemaker. If the church itself wants to ban firearms, they are welcome to – but the state has no business deciding for it.
Why are courts “sensitive places”? Because they’re full of criminals? The courthouse is also full of cops and law-abiding citizens taking care of business. Municipal buildings? Are you really that afraid of some guy disputing his property taxes that you have to ban all weapons? Parks? Come on, now! You’re just showing that you’re a hoplophobe.
So here’s what it looks like:
1) a bunch more people are gonna get CCW;
2) some fraction of those people are going to ignore the “sensitive spaces” that don’t actually have metal detectors;
3) some fraction of those people are going to be “stopped and frisked”, and run through the ringer;
4) one day, one of those CCW folks is going to stop a mass murder in one of those “sensitive spaces”.
5. Person in 4 goes to jail forever.
Or maybe ‘nobody saw nuttin Officer, we wuz all over here, he wuz over there we heard a boom and this guy was laying there bleeding out, sad for him but whatcha gonna do’
The subway is where the guns are needed and this has been true for 50 years.
Avoid the legal nets /
That entangled Bernie Goetz /
Just shout, “Help! Help! Police!” /
Like Kitty Genovese.
I, and others, may be old, but we do have long memories. Wonder how many people had to look up Kitty Genovese or (worse because much more recent) Bernhard Goetz.
Again, liberals do not care about the Supreme Court rulings
Of course the NY Democrats are going to do this. If they don’t want people legally carrying guns they will find any excuse to deny issuance of permits. As long as Democrats have a monopoly of power in NY nothing will change. The only way to stop them is at the ballot box.
No one sells/issues insurance in NYS of any type unless going via Albany.
Homeowners can find themselves with a new “clause” on renewal with a premium to cover the carriers cost of doing business in state. Car, boat, life etc., etc. One way or another, the state will make money off the increase, more than likely to cover part of the legal cost to defend the new stipulations.
We need to make the pols personally liable, in both a civil and criminal sense, for conspiracy to deprive citizens of their Constitutional rights.
Sixteen hours of additional training? Unconstitutionally void as a poll tax.
The in-person interview is going to be another big problem. You can bet the interviewer is only available 2 hours a day on alternate Tuesdays. Oh, we have 500 applicants? I guess that means we’ll get to you in 10 years. And if they don’t like your insufficiently obsequious attitude they’ll deny your application. They’ll probably deny it summarily anyway, it’s not as if they’re going to publish their acceptance criteria. Any questions?
Huh?
First of all you seem not to know what a poll tax is. It’s a flat tax that’s levied on each person simply for existing. It has nothing to do with elections, and it is perfectly constitutional.
The only connection to elections is that historically some states imposed such a tax, and made the right to vote conditional on paying the tax, but enforced this in an arbitrary and racist manner. People naturally got upset at that, so in 1964 the constitution was amended to ban states from linking the right to vote to “any poll tax or other tax”. Poll tax is only specifically mentioned because that was the tax whose abuse prompted the amendment. But this seems to be where some people get the misconception that a poll tax has something to do with elections.
That said, even by your mistaken definition, how is that relevant here? How does requiring some unreasonable amount of training for a carry license violate the 24th amendment?
You answer your own question, precisely because of the illegal INTENT of some jurisdictions. Thomas notes this too in footnote 9
9
To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ “shall-issue” licensing regimes, under which “a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit].” Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 442 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J.,dissenting).
Because these licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent “law-abiding, responsible citizens” from exercising their Second Amendment right to public carry. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 635 (2008).
Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Ibid.
And they likewise appear to contain only “narrow, objective, and definite standards” guiding licensing officials, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 151 (1969), rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion,” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 305 (1940)—features that typify proper-cause standards like New York’s.
That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.
Indeed, but what on earth has that got to do with poll taxes, or with the 24th amendment? The 24th amendment applies only to the right to vote (which isn’t even a fundamental constitutional right), and not to any other right, even fundamental ones like the freedom of speech and of the press or the RKBA.
This is ripe for a first amendment challenge. As I read it, the reviewing officer has to receive your social media accounts for the past three years upon initial application and upon renewal.
Not only can’t you make imprudent statements about political matters, you can lose your license if you admit that you’re sad because you’re mourning the death of a loved one.
What are “social media accounts”?
This forum we are using now is social media. Some functionary would read all your LI comments to decide whether you deserve a license. That’s obviously a violation of both the first and the second amendments.
All this after a 20 year old woman was shot and killed in front of her 3 month old child by a random assailant. The obsession with taking guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens is beyond me.
“While this analysis makes sense legally, remember it took over a decade for SCOTUS to take up another major 2nd Amendment case after Heller and McDonald.”
—————————————
With more liberal judges than originalists.
So maybe Clarence Thomas and the others will jump on another gun case much sooner and as a slap to liberal states he’ll make carrying a concealed weapon legal by giving the country Constitutional Carry next time.
And that can be laid at the robes of Kennedy and Rogers. Those who would have voted for certiorari were loath to do so when there was a distinct possibility (if not probability) that then current majority would reverse both Heller and McDonald. That is no longer an issue, there being five votes even without the easily bent Roberts.
Do this mean ordinary folks have to behave as the street gangs do ?
She’s gotta be in a 2 way race with Whitmer for the most deceitful looking US Governor.
There needs to be a Civil Rights Act that imposes criminal penalties on executives who sign laws depriving citizens of their rights, or enforce such laws.
Can we insist that voters are trained, then pass a test now? I mean if you have to pass a test to exercise your rights, why not voting?
Because that would require members of the press to pass an english competency test.
We’d be lucky if they had to pass any kind of competency test…
As far as the constitution is concerned, states are perfectly entitled to condition the franchise on passing a literacy test. And in my opinion they should, provided that it’s both a fair test and administered fairly. Unfortunately Congress made a law banning it. That law should be repealed, and replaced with one requiring strict monitoring of such tests to make sure they are administered completely equally to all voters.
Or use HS diploma / GED as a proxy to sidestep fairness questions re the test or its administration and grading. Local and State govt control the means and requirements for HS grad and GED so they only indict themselves if they complain.
Oh, yes, because the school systems are doing such a bang up job now teaching civics.
Oy vey.
Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t everywhere Gov Hochul shows up involves people being surrounded by guns because she has armed security?
I guess undermining SCOTUS decisions is now SOP.
Much like the “nuclear option,” that should have unanticipated consequences for the leftists.
Ultimately, it is incumbent on each individual (most grossly over compensated and celebrated, living off the truly professional 3 – 10 % of all ) LEO to cause their unions (because it is the unions which rule the PDs in NYC / NYS and throughout the USA) to respect the Constitution of the United States and now the SCOTUS “Bruen” Ruling. …
It is the individual LEO who these demonrats are committing to put their lives on the line to deny “law abiding citizens” their natural / G-d Given Rights protect by terms of the Constitution and the powers therein delegated to “government”.
The gangs which operate extra judicial and never involving LE will now grow and in fact multiply.
hochul by these actions (like cuomo before her/him/psycho/whatever) is manifesting blatant disregard for the oath of office: https://law.justia.com/constitution/new-york/article-xiii/section-1/
A big F-you from NY to SCOTUS and the US Constitution. What else did we expect from leftist Democrat depots and tyrants?
Instruct me if I am mistaken.
Cannot an aggrieved party seek redress by appealing directly to SCOTUS for them to review these intentional finger pokes in the Court’s eye, and deal with them on the shadow docket with injunctive relief, since cert has already been granted and Justice Thomas made mention of such underhanded tactics within Bruen itself?
Thomas has already discussed this fraud
Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554 U. S., at 626.
Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions. See D. Kopel & J. Greenlee, The “Sensitive Places” Doctrine, 13 Charleston L. Rev. 205, 229–236, 244– 247 (2018); see also Brief for Independent Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–17.
We therefore can assume it settled that these locations were “sensitive places” where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of “sensitive places” to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.
Although we have no occasion to comprehensively define “sensitive places” in this case, we do think respondents err in their attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a “sensitive-place” law. 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.” Brief for Respondents 34.
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 publicly 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.
The bottom line here is that Hochul and her Democrat allies have zero respect for fundamental rights. We see this in this case with their work to prevent people from protecting themselves, and we see it with their efforts to allow abortions at essentially any stage of a pregnancy, an affront to the right to life itself.
They hate us, and they mean to fully rule over us.
Democrats hate the fact that citizens still have rights they cannot eliminate.
Could someone gently pour a bucket of water on Gov. Hochul to see if she melts? Please?