Ivan Antonyuk, et al. v. Steven G. James, In His Official Capacity as the Superintendent of the New York State Police, et al.

Moments after this Court issued N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), striking down New York’s discretionary firearms licensing regime, state politicians decried the decision as “reprehensible,” vowing to resist the “insanity” of “gun culture” that “possessed … the Supreme Court.” Rather than following Bruen, New York enacted a “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” that makes it more difficult to bear arms than before Bruen was decided. A panel of the Second Circuit upheld much of this law in an opinion this Court vacated in light of United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). But on remand, the panel doubled down, reissuing a nearly identical opinion and dismissing Rahimi as having “little direct bearing on our conclusions.” Relying almost entirely on a few late-19th-century outlier laws rather than Founding-era practice, the panel again affirmed New York’s requirement of “good moral character” as a precondition to public carry, along with most of its gun bans in all manner of nonsensitive public places. These holdings clearly contravene Bruen’s rejection of discretionary “suitability” assessments and warning not to declare all of Manhattan a “sensitive place.” The questions presented are:

1. Whether the proper historical time period for ascertaining the Second Amendment’s original meaning as applied to the states is 1791, rather than 1868; and

2. Whether “the people” must convince government officials of their “good moral character” before exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms.