By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
More than a dozen gun rights organizations led by the Second Amendment Foundation have filed a 37-page amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a challenge to New York carry laws by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association.
The case will be heard sometime during the court’s 2021 session, which begins in October. Traditionally, the court opens its sessions on the first Monday of that month. It’s a case gun rights advocates and gun prohibitionists will be watching with equal interest because the outcome could have far-reading implications for jurisdictions with “good cause” requirements for issuance of carry permits.
The case is known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Kevin P. Bruen, et.al.
It’s the first Second Amendment case to be accepted for review by the high court since 2010, when the court nullified a handgun ban in Chicago in the SAF case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. That ruling had added significance because it incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment, opening the floodgates for gun rights litigation against state and local laws on Second Amendment grounds. In the decade since McDonald, SAF and other organizations have filed dozens of cases
Joining the foundation in its “friend of the court” brief are the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Buckeye Firearms Foundation, Connecticut Citizens Defense League, Illinois State Rifle Association, Florida Carry, Inc., Grass Roots North Carolina, Louisiana Shooting Association, Tennessee Firearms Association, Maryland Shall Issue, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Sportsmen’s Association for Firearms Education, and Virginia Citizens Defense League.
In a prepared statement, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb observed, “This case has been a long time coming and it would not be an overstatement that SAF has an intense interest because of our many members in New York and elsewhere that so-called ‘proper cause’ requirements are routinely used to deny law-abiding citizens the ability to carrying firearms for personal protection outside their homes.”
He said laws requiring a “good cause” in order to exercise a constitutionally protected fundamental right are “arbitrary in nature and they place an absurd level of authority in the hands of local officials and their subordinates.”
“The Second Amendment should no longer be treated like the ugly stepchild of the Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb stated. “Its language is clear, that the amendment protects not only the right of the individual citizen to keep arms, but to bear them, and that right extends beyond the confines of one’s home. A right limited to someone’s home is no right at all, and the court now has an opportunity to make that abundantly clear, settling an important constitutional issue once and for all.”
Last year, the court declined to hear nearly a dozen gun rights-related cases of which several were SAF cases and one involved its sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
