ALBANY — A pro-gun-rights group Wednesday filed a new lawsuit challenging New York State’s concealed-carry firearm restrictions.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Syracuse by the state Rifle and Pistol Association with the National Rifle Association, said the current state law restricting licenses to carry guns outside the home to only those who can prove a need for self-defense violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
While the state’s concealed-carry law has been upheld previously, the lawsuit asks the courts to take another look in the wake of a federal court ruling that found a District of Columbia law requiring someone to show “good reason” to carry a concealed handgun is unconstitutional.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September declined to hear an appeal on the issue — a win for gun owners. But courts in four other federal circuits upheld gun-permitting laws.
Gov. Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi blasted the lawsuit as “disturbing, but not surprising that the mini-NRA is once again seeking to waste taxpayer money on a frivolous lawsuit to make New York less safe.”
State Rifle and Pistol Association President Tom King, who is also an NRA board member, said the atmosphere my be ripe to challenge the state law. But even if the case is rejected in New York, he said, different rulings from separate federal courts could convince the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the issue.
“Do I want to see this ruled in our favor in the New York in the Northern District? Yes I do,” King said. “If it isn’t and we aren’t successful in the second circuit Court of Appeals, then we’re prepared to go to the Supreme Court.”
The lawsuit comes after the House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would allow people to licensed to carry concealed weapons in one state to do so in other states.
The suit also looks to build on a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a District of Columbia law banning the possession of handguns and requiring that legally owned rifles and shotguns in the home be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock, King said.
“The Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment protects the right of armed self-defense, and that right is just as important to the ordinary, law-abiding citizen when he is commuting to work or shopping for groceries in an unsafe neighborhood, as it is when he is at home,” King said.
Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, called the latest pro-gun lawsuit “nothing short of frivolous.”
“It’s hard to image a case guaranteed to lose more than this one,” Skaggs said. “The 2nd Circuit has definitively ruled and upheld New York’s concealed-carry law.”
If the idea, he said, is to try to ensure the case is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, “it’s highly unlikely that such a strategy will succeed.”
“The Supreme Court has had multiple chances to take up this question and has said no,” Skaggs said. “There’s no reason to believe they will rule differently here.”
Azzopardi said that “while the federal government constantly tries to strip away gun safety laws, Governor Cuomo will continue to defend the toughest gun laws in the nation.”
