Nadine Gazzola, et al. v. Kathleen Hochul, Governor of New York, et al.

As news broke that Dobbs would overturn Roe and Bruen would strike down the Sullivan Act, NYS Gov. Kathleen Hochul got “angry” and drove into law a firstin-class scheme targeting federally-licensed dealers in firearms with dozens of mandates under threat of criminal prosecution; along with an ammunition background check, rifle licensing, and concealed carry license standardized instruction and testing. The Second Circuit followed Hochul through the back door. It denied Petitioners’ individual standing but used derivative claims to adopt pre-Bruen scrutiny tests. It foreshadowed the status quo ante of 1,791 federallylicensed dealers in firearms in NY will be allowed to free-fall under the new mandates to somewhere short of “elimination.” Absent was an evaluation of Petitioners’ novel theory that “to keep” of “to keep and bear arms,” tested by “constitutional regulatory overburden,” can protect dealers on an equal constitutional basis as the individual. The questions presented are: Did the Second Circuit err in the Winter analysis of Petitioners’ request for preliminary injunctive relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 65, including (1.) when it adopted pre-Bruen scrutiny testing for Second Amendment claims effecting the core rights of individuals and of derivative claims on behalf of individuals; and/or (2.) when it failed to evaluate Petitioners’ likelihood of success in their novel theory of “to keep” from “to keep and bear arms” as having independent constitutional value to protect federallylicensed dealers in firearms as measured by the standard of “constitutional regulatory overburden?”