Maybe Kavanaugh will pay off sooner than we thought

Continuing Fight to Protect Second Amendment Rights, Attorney General Jeff Landry Leads 17-State Coalition Against Overreaching Gun Restriction

BATON ROUGE, LA – With federal court decisions impacting Louisiana people, regardless of where the lawsuits originate, Attorney General Jeff Landry is leading a 17-state coalition against a New York City gun restriction which threatens Second Amendment protections.

In an amicus brief filed today, General Landry’s coalition asks the United States Supreme Court to consider the permitting scheme’s burden on Second Amendment rights, the full extent of those rights, and the applicability of those rights to self-defense outside the home.

“The restrictive policies memorialized in New York City’s ‘premises permit’ scheme unduly burdens the Second Amendment rights held by all Americans,” said General Landry. “Criminalizing travel with a securely stored firearm creates an imbalance in our federal system that weighs against lawful exercise of the Second Amendment inside and outside of New York City.”

The terms of New York City’s pricey permit prohibit removing any firearm from the home with two exceptions, practicing at a range in the city or hunting in the state - and hunting requires authorization from the city’s police department. To remove a firearm from the home for any other purpose requires a separate, yet similarly expensive “carry” permit that is very difficult to obtain.

In their legal brief, General Landry and his counterparts argue that New York City did not show sufficient cause to burden citizens’ gun rights in their pursuit of crime prevention and public safety, both of which are frustrated by restricting licensed and trained gun owners from carrying outside their homes. This restriction has the practical implication of leaving thousands of firearms in unoccupied homes, where they are of no use to their lawful owners when faced with dangerous situations.

“The need for self-defense is not limited to the home and the right to possess a firearm should not be either,” said General Landry. “From self-defense to hunting, the lawful exercise of our Second Amendment rights should be fully supported.”

New York City’s regulation not only offends the Second Amendment and other constitutional protections, but it also poses a serious economic burden. “New York’s regulatory scheme discriminates against interstate commerce because it ‘deprives out-of-state businesses of access to a local market’ by forbidding its citizens from hunting and patronizing ranges outside the State with their own guns,” wrote General Landry and the others.

The 16 states joining Louisiana in the brief are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin through their Attorney Generals and Mississippi and Kentucky through their Governors. The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. et al. v. City of New York et al.

New York's Sullivan Act has already been found constitutional by the Second Circuit in Kachalsky v. Cacace (2012), but hey, go for it. If we can get it heard by the Supreme Court, with it's slight realignment toward the right, who knows what will happen.