July 20, 2021
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today filed an important amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a challenge of New York State’s restrictive concealed carry permitting scheme by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association.
SAF is joined in this “friend of the court” brief by several organizations including the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Buckeye Firearms Foundation, Connecticut Citizens Defense League, Illinois State Rifle Association, Florida Carry, Inc., Grass Roots North Carolina, Louisiana Shooting Association, Tennessee Firearms Association, Maryland Shall Issue, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Sportsmen’s Association for Firearms Education, and Virginia Citizens Defense League.
“This case has been a long time coming and it would not be an overstatement that SAF has an intense interest because of our many members in New York and elsewhere that so-called ‘proper cause’ requirements are routinely used to deny law-abiding citizens the ability to carrying firearms for personal protection outside their homes,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Such laws are arbitrary in nature and they place an absurd level of authority in the hands of local officials and their subordinates to deny citizens their constitutional right to bear arms.”
The Supreme Court has not heard a Second Amendment case in more than a decade, Gottlieb recalled, “and it is high time to consider another.” The last time the high court took on a Second Amendment case was in 2010, which resulted in the victory known as McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case brought by SAF that nullified Chicago’s unconstitutional handgun ban and incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment and made this New York case possible. The 35-page brief is submitted by attorneys David H. Thompson and Peter A. Patterson, Cooper & Kirk PLLC, Washington, D.C.
“The Second Amendment should no longer be treated like the ugly stepchild of the Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb observed. “Its language is clear, that the amendment protects not only the right of the individual citizen to keep arms, but to bear them, and that right extends beyond the confines of one’s home. A right limited to someone’s home is no right at all, and the court now has an opportunity to make that abundantly clear, settling an important constitutional issue once and for all.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 700,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.