Second Circuit upholds New York’s firearm bans in Times Square and public spaces

MANHATTAN (CN) ­– The Second Circuit federal appellate court on Friday morning issued a ruling upholding New York state’s ban on open carry of firearms and its prohibition on carrying firearms in Times Square and in America’s largest and busiest subway system.

The 50-page opinion upholds a lower court decision that New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation and thus, “does not violate the Second Amendment.”

The statute requires New York gun owners seeking a concealed-carry license to “show good moral character” and complete 18 hours of training on safe storage requirements, state and federal gun laws and situational awareness, among others.

It also makes carrying firearms in “sensitive locations” including transit, sports venues, houses of worship and Times Square a felony.

Janet Carter, managing director of the legal department of the Everytown for Gun Safety non-profit organization, celebrated the ruling as an affirmation of a “major victory for gun safety.”

“Ask the average New Yorker if they want guns on the subway or in the bustle of Times Square, and the answer is unequivocally no. Nor do they want people carrying openly on our crowded streets. Today’s Second Circuit ruling is a major win for public safety across the city,” she wrote in a statement Friday on behalf of Everytown for Gun Safety as an amicus party in the appeal. “We’re pleased to see that the court has forcefully rejected these reckless challenges, which have no basis in the Second Amendment.”

The state enacted the law in 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen , adding new requirements for obtaining a concealed carry license.

In October 2022, New York gun owners Jason Frey, Brianna Frey, Jack Cheng and William Sappe filed a pre-enforcement Second Amendment challenge in the Southern District of New York, seeking to preliminarily enjoin the enforcement of those gun-related restrictions.

U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman, a Barack Obama appointee, denied the gun owners’ motion for lack of subject matter jurisdiction in a March 13, 2023, [order](http://Second Circuit upholds New York’s firearms bans in Times Square and on the subway).

On appeal before the Manhattan-based Second Circuit, the gun owners were again not able to prevail on the argument that the statute was a violation of their 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

“There is perhaps no public place more quintessentially crowded than Times Square," the panel wrote. “In short, Times Square is our modern-day, electrified, supersized equivalent of fairs, markets, and town squares of old. We therefore need not stretch the analogy far,’ to conclude that [the statute] is entirely consistent with our historical tradition of regulating firearms in quintessentially crowded places in both the ‘how’ and ‘why.’”

The panel similarly found that gun restrictions on New York City’s MTA subway and Metro-North lines also fell under a national historical tradition of regulations on crowded public spaces.

“What’s more, once the familiar command—‘stand clear of the closing doors’—sounds and the car doors slam shut, riders are sealed within the slender metal tube until, absent misadventure, they emerge at the next station stop,” the panel wrote. “Firearm prohibitions in subway and train systems are therefore especially akin to those historical laws that specifically singled out enclosed crowded spaces, such as ballrooms, as places where prohibiting firearm carriage was appropriate.”

The opinion was penned by U.S. Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco, a Donald Trump appointee.

Bianco was joined on the three-judge panel by U.S. Circuit Judges Reena Raggi, a George W. Bush appointee, and Robert Sack, a Bill Clinton appointee.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals previously affirmed the bulk of the same New York statute in a separate opinion last year, and also in a decision the year prior.

Last week, a Florida state appellate panel struck down the Sunshine State’s decades-old concealed carry ban as unconstitutional.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, announced that he would not challenge the decision and declared open carrying legal, while other gun laws remain in force, including prohibitions on carrying guns into schools, courthouses, bars and onto college campuses.

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