Leaning heavily on the second Bruen standard—the ability to show a historical precedent—a district court in New York on Thursday permanently enjoined the state’s law banning guns on private property open to the public without express consent of the owner.
In the case Christian v. James, U.S. District Judge John. L. Sinatra of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York wrote in the ruling that the state’s arguments concerning past “similar” laws weren’t convincing enough.
“Regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations,” the court stated in the ruling. “Indeed, property owners have the right to exclude. But the state may not unilaterally exercise that right and, thereby, interfere with the long-established Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense on private property open to the public.”
Just the day before the ruling, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had gloated that, after the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, the state “doubled down” on its anti-rights agenda. “[The State] came up with legislation,” Hochul said in a news release. “And we have a prohibition on concealed carry weapons in sensitive places. I personally think every place is sensitive.”
However, the court disagreed and handed Hochul yet another loss on a law that infringes upon New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights. That fact wasn’t lost on Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), which brought the lawsuit.
“This is yet another important victory for Second Amendment rights and another major loss for New York, authoritarian governments, and radical anti-rights organizations like Everytown and Giffords,” Combs said in an FPC press release. “We will continue to fight forward as we work to restore the full scope of the right to keep and bear arms throughout the United States. Hopefully Kathy Hochul is ready to write another check for legal fees.”
The ruling further stated: “In sum, none of the proffered Founding-era enactments, fairly read, burdened the individual’s right to carry firearms in the same way, to the same extent, or for the same reasons as the restrictions here—which impose a default rule banning firearms on all private property open to the public for ‘whatever reason and regardless of the nature of the land at issue.’”
In the end, the court ruled that, effective immediately, the state could longer enforce the provision.
“It is … ordered that defendant’s and their officers, agents, servants, employees and all persons in concert or in participation with them who receive notice of this order are permanently enjoined, effective immediately, from enforcing [the law] with respect to private property open to the public, and their regulations, policies and practices implementing it,” the ruling concluded.
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