CRPA Files Amicus Brief Urging the Supreme Court to Strike New York’s Restrictive Carry Law and Adopt a Meaningful Standard for Reviewing Second Amendment Challenges

The CRPA is proud to announce that we have filed another critical amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court–this time urging the Court to overturn New York’s overly restrictive carry regime. The challenged law demands that those seeking a license to carry a firearm concealed for self-defense show that they have a special need to do so–effectively banning public carry in many parts of the Empire State. The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (“NYSRPA”).

Joined by our friends at the Second Amendment Law Center, the CRPA argues that unconstitutional bans on protected conduct, like New York’s effective ban on public carry, are consistently upheld because abuse of the Second Amendment has become the norm in the lower courts, which routinely engage in improper Second Amendment analyses. The goal of CRPA’s brief is to convince the Court to not only strike New York’s unlawful carry law, but to adopt a meaningful test for evaluating Second Amendment challenges throughout the country. Doing so, will bring much needed clarity to the law for courts and legislatures alike and may stop the Ninth Circuit from continuing to use bad analysis in Second Amendment cases.

CRPA’s input is particularly valuable here, given its work on similar carry lawsuits, including Peruta v. County of San Diego and Flanagan v. Becerra, among others. Recall, in Peruta, CRPA secured a favorable ruling from a panel of the Ninth Circuit that would have struck California’s “good cause” requirement. But as CRPA’s amicus brief recounts, that decision–like essentially every other pro-gun decision in the Ninth Circuit–was reheard en banc and reversed. The Ninth Circuit’s en banc treatment of pro-gun decisions, like Peruta, is a symptom of the disease that is the lower courts’ disdain for the Second Amendment. (En banc hearings are supposed to be rarely used for specific reasons, but the Ninth Circuit has made a regular habit out of taking up Second Amendment cases en banc to try to stifle rulings favorable to Second Amendment litigants).

CRPA is hopeful that the Supreme Court will issue a decisive opinion in NYSRPA that ends the courts’ (mis)treatment of the Second Amendment as a “second-class right” once and for all. But no matter the outcome, CRPA stands ready to continue its fight against California’s unconstitutional restrictions on your right to keep and bear arms.

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CRPA’s efforts in NYSRPA and the many other lawsuits fighting for the rights of California gun owners would not be possible without the support of our members and the public. Please help CRPA continue the fight against California’s unconstitutional laws by donating to the CRPA Foundation.

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