New York gun restrictions stand after high court declines review

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court passed up an opportunity on Monday to review New York regulations banning concealed firearms in sensitive places.

Almost three years ago, the justices used the Empire State’s firearm laws to upend Second Amendment jurisprudence across the nation, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to block New York’s updated regulations.

The Concealed Carry Improvement Act or the CCIA, limits concealed weapons in certain areas like churches, medical offices, public parks and entertainment venues. Gun owners who want to carry concealed guns must also show good moral character to receive a license.

The conservative majority rejected a previous iteration of the law in New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022. In the present case, a group of New York gun owners claimed that the de facto prohibition on public carry violated the history test laid out in the landmark Bruen .

“The CCIA — by design and intent — makes the licensing process so onerous, and the list of newly ‘sensitive’ places so expansive that, in New York, it is as if Bruen was never decided,” the gun owners wrote.

New York’s law has been challenged on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket by gun owners and firearm retailers, but the justices have repeatedly refused to intervene.

This time on the merits docket, the gun owners noted continued lower court confusion over the test for reviewing gun regulations.

Bruen created a historical analog requirement for all gun regulations. Last year, the Second Circuit upheld New York’s law, finding that matched 19th-century laws like a gun ban in parks and zoos.

However, not just any historical analog would do, the gun owners claimed, stating that courts needed to look to the public understanding of rights in 1791.

“This court should definitively announce that the proper time period for ascertaining the scope of the Second Amendment is the founding — not the last two decades of the 19th century,” the gun owners wrote.

The justices refused to take up their offer without explanation. There were no noted dissents.

The court similarly sidestepped challenges to the federal felon-in-possession ban. A Florida man with nonviolent drug charges challenged the prohibition on possessing firearms in his home for self-defense.

Devon Gray moved to dismiss his firearm charges under Bruen , arguing that the ban was unconstitutional. The 11th Circuit disagreed, breaking with other circuits that have ruled in defendants’ favor in similar appeals.

The Supreme Court refused to review Gray’s case itself, instead ordering the appeals court to take a second look at the court’s recent precedent upholding a ban on firearms for domestic abusers.

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