MANHATTAN (CN) — A Second Circuit panel on Tuesday ruled a lower court should have determined whether a civil rights lawyer who claims New York’s 18-hour training requirement to obtain a concealed carry license violates the Second Amendment even has standing to bring the case.
Jonathan Corbett, who applied for a license before a law that created new training requirements was passed, had told the Second Circuit panel the state’s 18-hour training requirement is unnecessary and extensive.
Known as the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, the law also bans firearms in “sensitive locations” in New York, including public transit, sports venues, houses of worship and Times Square. The new restrictions were adopted by New York lawmakers just over a week after the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.
Corbett sought a preliminary injunction to exempt him from the state’s new training requirement while his concealed-carry application was pending. The lower court denied his request and Corbett appealed.
In its decision, the Second Circuit found the lower court erred by not first determining whether Corbett has standing to challenge the CCIA’s training requirement.
“Jurisdictional questions of this sort should be addressed in the first instance by the district court, and thus, we cannot address the merits of the appeal until the jurisdictional question is decided,” the panel wrote.
Once the lower court makes a decision regarding Corbett’s standing, any party to the appeal may restore jurisdiction to the Second Circuit within 30 days by letter.
The new law requires concealed-carry permit applicants to complete 16 hours of firearm safety training on safe storage requirements, state and federal gun laws and situational awareness, among other topics. The other two hours focus on live fire training.
Representing himself in oral arguments before the Second Circuit, Corbett argued it does not take 18 hours to cover these training topics.
“If there was something that could be conveyed within these 16 or 18 total hours that would protect the public my position would probably change,” Corbett said at the October arguments. “But I don’t think that it’s there.”
Attorneys for the state pointed to mandatory militia training laws imposed by states around the time of the country’s founding, including a law that required “all able-bodied adult men to participate in compulsory training for four days, every single year.” The U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Bruen now requires any new firearm restrictions imposed by states to be justified by laws or practices in place when the Constitution was signed.
“These laws demonstrate a historical tradition, dating back to the Founding Era, of requiring time-consuming training to ensure competence with arms,” the state’s lawyers argued in their brief.
U.S. Circuit Judges Sarah A.L. Merriam and Jennifer Rochon, both Joe Biden appointees, and U.S. Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes, a Bill Clinton appointee, made up the panel.
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