MANHATTAN (CN) — Connecticut veteran David Nastri is allowed to challenge the constitutionality of handgun carry laws in state parks, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday.
Nastri sued Connecticut officials last year over a rule that bars the carrying of handguns in state parks for self-defense purposes but allows it for hunting and sport. A lower court tossed his case last July, finding that Nastri failed to prove that he faced a credible threat of prosecution for violating the law.
That was wrong, the Second Circuit ruled on Friday.
“We do not place the burden on the plaintiff to show an intent by the government to enforce the law against him but rather presume such intent in the absence of a disavowal by the government,” the court ruled.
The nine-page ruling from U.S. Circuit Judges Dennis Jacobs, a George H.W. Bush Appointee, Richard Sullivan, a Donald Trump appointee, and Pierre Leval, a Bill Clinton Appointee, came just nine days after the panel heard oral arguments from the parties.
During those arguments, state attorney Tim Holzman told the court that Nastri “offered nothing but speculation that this regulation ever actually would be enforced against him if he did carry his handgun.”
Sullivan took issue with that argument last week, countering that the threat isn't speculative if parks police intend on enforcing the rule. The judges echoed that same sentiment in their Friday ruling.
“At best, the state offers a variety of reasons why Nastri’s fear of enforcement is too ‘speculative,’ such as the fact that Connecticut parks are sparsely patrolled, that Nastri has not run into any officers in the parks, and that Nastri does not believe anyone noticed he was carrying a handgun in the past,” the judges wrote.
Existing case law forecloses that argument from the state, the court found. Unless the state disavows enforcing the law, the panel ruled, “we thus presume that the state intends to enforce it.”
“Far from disavowing enforcement against Nastri, the director of Connecticut’s Environmental Conservation Police testified at a deposition that his department receives calls about persons with firearms in state parks, responds to those calls by sending officers to investigate, and would take enforcement action if its officers found a person with an unauthorized firearm,” the judges said.
Without disavowing enforcement, there is no reason to assume that the state wouldn’t prosecute Nastri if he’s caught armed in a Connecticut park, the court ruled. Thus, Nastri has the standing to challenge the law.
“We’re pleased that the Second Circuit acted speedily to squash the baseless contention that this unconstitutional law is a dead letter, especially since the state refused to disavow enforcement,” Nastri’s lawyer Cameron Atkinson said in a statement to Courthouse News. “We look forward to having this law declared unconstitutional on remand and for every law-abiding citizen to be able to protect themselves where the state refuses to protect them.”
In his lawsuit, Nastri targeted Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes, who he says has the “rulemaking authority to adopt, modify, or repeal regulations” having to do with the state’s parks.
A frequent visitor of three Connecticut parks, Nastri says the rule is “depriving its citizens of the most popular means of self-defense where it is undoubtedly the hardest for first responders to protect them.”
With Friday’s appellate ruling, Nastri will now be allowed to make that argument to a lower court. Nastri is seeking a permanent injunction that bars Dykes from enforcing the law, as well as a declaratory judgment that acknowledges the rule’s unconstitutionality.
Dykes' office at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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