New York Judge Rules that Gun Possession Law is Unconstitutional
Jose Nino
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Six New York residents recently challenged a current New York law that slaps criminal penalties on individuals who possess a firearm without the right paperwork. Technically such an offense is a felony in the Empire state,
These six individuals were all charged with illegal gun possession. The New York State Court of Appeals recently threw out their lawsuits in a 6-1 decision. The majority of judges reached the conclusion that the plaintiffs failed to put forward a timely case, but avoided any direct ruling on the gun control law’s constitutionality. The only judge who dissented in this instance was Judge Jenny Rivera. She declared that in the wake of the Bruen supreme Court decision it’s high time for the law to be scrapped.
Curiously, as Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms noted, Rivera is one of the most liberal members of the Court of Appeals per the Journal-News.
The aforementioned 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen ruled that a key part of New York’s licensing process, mandating a special need to acquire a concealed carry permit, infringed the Second Amendment. Due to this, Rivera argued that the state of New York can no longer presume that everyone who owns an unlicensed firearm plans on using it illegally.
“Given the Bruen majority’s holding… the statutory presumption is unconstitutional on its face as it requires the jury to assume a defendant intends an unlawful use of a weapon merely because they possess the weapon in public,” Rivera wrote in her dissenting opinion.
While Rivera was on an island here, he opinion could serve as the basis for future decisions that strike down gun control laws in blue states nationwide.
New York is arguably the most anti-gun state in the union as evidenced by its dead last 51st place ranking according to Guns & Ammo magazine’s best states for gun owners rankings. At this point, gun owners will have to rely on the courts for any gun control laws to be repealed or at least stymied. That’s the harsh reality of living in a Democrat-dominated state where there’s no means of passing pro-gun reforms through conventional legislative means.
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