BATON ROUGE, LA – With
federal court decisions impacting Louisiana people, regardless of where the
lawsuits originate, Attorney General Jeff Landry is leading a 17-state
coalition against a New York City gun restriction which threatens Second Amendment
protections.
In an amicus brief filed today, General Landry’s
coalition asks the United States Supreme Court to consider the permitting
scheme’s burden on Second Amendment rights, the full extent of those rights, and
the applicability of those rights to self-defense outside the home.
“The restrictive policies memorialized in New York
City’s ‘premises permit’ scheme unduly burdens the Second Amendment rights held
by all Americans,” said General Landry. “Criminalizing travel with a securely
stored firearm creates an imbalance in our federal system that weighs against
lawful exercise of the Second Amendment inside and outside of New York City.”
The terms of New York City’s pricey permit prohibit
removing any firearm from the home with two exceptions, practicing at a range
in the city or hunting in the state - and hunting requires
authorization from the city’s police department. To remove a firearm from the
home for any other purpose requires a separate, yet similarly expensive “carry”
permit that is very difficult to obtain.
In their legal brief, General Landry and his
counterparts argue that New York City did not show sufficient cause to burden
citizens’ gun rights in their pursuit of crime prevention and public safety,
both of which are frustrated by restricting licensed and trained gun owners
from carrying outside their homes. This restriction has the practical
implication of leaving thousands of firearms in unoccupied homes, where they
are of no use to their lawful owners when faced with dangerous situations.
“The need for self-defense is not limited to the home
and the right to possess a firearm should not be either,” said General Landry.
“From self-defense to hunting, the lawful exercise of our Second Amendment rights
should be fully supported.”
New York City’s regulation not only offends the Second
Amendment and other constitutional protections, but it also poses a serious
economic burden. “New York’s regulatory scheme discriminates against interstate
commerce because it ‘deprives out-of-state businesses of access to a local
market’ by forbidding its citizens from hunting and patronizing ranges outside
the State with their own guns,” wrote General Landry and the others.
The 16 states joining Louisiana in the brief are
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin through
their Attorney Generals and Mississippi and Kentucky through their Governors.
The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. et al. v.
City of New York et al.
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