In layman’s terms: The State of New York cannot prohibit concealed carry of firearms onto private property open to the public.
Today a New York District Court Judge struck down the State’s private property default carry ban – also known as the “vampire rule.”
Ruling in a case known as *Christian v. James*, in the United States District Court in the Western District of New York, Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. found New York’s default position banning the concealed carry of firearms onto private property open to the public to be Unconstitutional.
“This is yet another important victory for Second Amendment rights and another major loss for New York, authoritarian governments, and radical anti-rights organizations like Everytown and Giffords. We will continue to fight forward as we work to restore the full scope of the right to keep and bear arms throughout the United States. Hopefully Kathy Hochul is ready to write another check for legal fees,” said FPC President Brandon Combs in an email statement.
Once again, the Court relied heavily on Bruen, stating that the decision was:
a result dictated by the teaching of the Supreme Court’s recent cases addressing individual Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. Regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. New York fails that test here.
The case was filed in 2022 and brought jointly by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) supporting a private citizen challenging the New York Bruen-response bill called the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act”.
Learn more about the history of the case here.
On November 22, 2022 the court issued a preliminary injunction. The State appealed and the Second Circuit affirmed the decision, with an eye on three other cases dealing with a similar issue. With those victories in their pocket, the plaintiffs moved for summary judgment (basically requesting the Court to permanently strike down the law). The State naturally opposed this motion. Then in September of 2024, the Court heard oral arguments in the case.
In the case filings and discussion, the hefty collection of powerful, unassailable, pro-Second Amendment cases were referenced time and again: Heller, McDonald, Bruen, and Rahimi. And in looking at the history of similar, analogous laws, the Court concluded:
In sum, none of the proffered founding-era enactments, fairly read, burdened the individual’s right to carry firearms in the same way, to the same extent, or for the same reasons as the restriction here…
The court added, “The State has not established that its sweeping prohibition of carriage on private property open to the public ‘is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms’.”
The court also pointed out that the State’s restrictions violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
The court also denied the State’s request for a fourteen-day stay pending appeal.
