ACS New York: NYSRPA v. Bruen: Second Amendment Litigation One Year Later

On June 20, 2022, when the Supreme Court issued New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, it sent shockwaves through the legal community. Bruen’s immediate effect was to strike down New York’s concealed carry permitting scheme. But Bruen also introduced a new test for gun regulations: gun laws were now presumptively unconstitutional unless the law could be shown to be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The year following Bruen has seen courts grapple with how to apply Bruen’s new test, including a surprising Fifth Circuit decision to strike down as unconstitutional the federal ban on firearms possession by domestic violence offenders.

Join us for a virtual conversation with Jake Charles, an expert on the Second Amendment and professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, to discuss Bruen, its new test for gun laws, and how lower courts have applied Bruen’s “historical tradition” test. Moderated by Nick Kabat, Board Member of the ACS New York Lawyer's Chapter.

Reading Suggestions:

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022).

• Jake Charles, The Supreme Court’s Big Second Amendment Decision Is Wreaking Havoc on Gun Safety Laws (Oct. 7, 2022, 11:53 AM), https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/federal-judge-strikes-down-most-of-new-yorks-concealed-carry-limits-citing-the-supreme-court.html.

• United States v. Rahimi, 61 F.4th 443 (5th Cir. 2023) (Striking down federal statute prohibiting firearms possession by domestic violence offenders).

• Jake Charles, Bruen, Analogies, and the Quest for Goldilocks History, Duke Ctr. For Firearms Law (June 28, 2022), https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2022/06/bruen-analogies-and-the-quest-for-goldilocks-history/.

• Jake Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History, 73 Duke L.J. __, (forthcoming, 2023), available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4335545.