NYSRPA vs Bruen

On June 23rd of 2022, the Supreme Court found that New York's 'may issue' pistol permit system violates the constitution [link]. This impacts all the 'may issue' states to some degree, including:     California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. What is more important is the guidance on how the lower courts are to assess other gun laws, as this is even more important, given the number of new guns laws earlier this month.

Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.

Several cases were remanded back to the lower courts. [link]

On July 1st of 2022 the New York legislature, not to be outdone, met in 'extraordinary' session to rush even more gun control laws into place. The new bill S51001 includes changes meant only to harm or dissuade New Yorker's from exercising their rights, including people who already have pistols. [link] 

Many of these new requirements will also fail the tests for legality but it will take time, and yet again the only people negatively impact are the law abiding citizens of NY. 

Many of the new requirements will initially be accepted as reasonable, but will later be proven to be capricious and arbitrarily enforced. Justice Thomas' opinion noted that shall issue licensing systems were perfectly legal, as long as they did not ...[under construction]