The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) has a New York law that forbids legal carry of concealed firearms for self-defense in New York’s Times Square, centered in its crosshairs.
On March 20, FPC attorneys filed the lawsuit Goldberger v. James with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges New York’s “sensitive location” handgun carry ban in Times Square.
As many TTAG readers likely remember, after the crucial Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, New York quickly passed sweeping gun control laws in response. Those laws included designating much of New York as “sensitive locations” where guns are banned.
“The Times Square Carry Ban unlawfully deprives individuals of the right to keep and bear arms in what is indisputably a public place where the need for self-defense may arise,” the complaint states. “This makes a mockery of the Supreme Court’s holding in Bruen, which reaffirmed that personal security extends to more than just ‘those . . . who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force,’ to include ordinary, law-abiding Americans ‘outside the home.’”
As FPC pointed out in a news release announcing the court filing, New York’s ban clearly contradicts the Supreme Court’s holding that governments cannot ban carry simply because a location is crowded and generally protected by the police.
“FPC filed this case to end New York’s Times Square gun ban and free New Yorkers from anti-rights tyrants like Letitia James,” FPC President Brandon Combs said. “Times Square isn’t a Constitution-free zone, and the government can’t disarm peaceable people who carry for self-defense on public sidewalks and streets.”
The complaint also explains how the Supreme Court in Bruen addressed the very justifications that New York relies on to support the Times Square Carry Ban.
“In the Supreme Court’s Case discussion of the historical limits it identified on the right, the Court rejected the idea that historical locational restrictions could be relied on to justify broadly limiting carry in New York City, explaining that ‘there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a ‘sensitive place’ simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.’ While not designating the entire island a sensitive place, New York has done the next worst thing and declared a large portion and central thoroughfare of New York City a sensitive place based on that same rejected reasoning.”
Ultimately, the complaint asks the court for a “declaratory judgment that N.Y. PENAL LAW § 265.01-e(2)(t), and Defendants’ enforcement thereof, infringe upon Plaintiffs’ right to bear arms protected under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, both facially and as applied.”
FPC’s Combs hopes his organization’s efforts will lead to more freedom for New Yorkers.
“This unconstitutional ban violates the rights of hundreds of thousands of people every day, so we will force the State to respect the Second Amendment—whether they like it or not,” he concluded.