A recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling upheld most of New York state’s new restrictions on acquiring and carrying concealed handguns in public.
Nobody’s expecting that to be the final word.
The Dec. 8 ruling by a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit was the most significant decision on firearms since the U.S. Supreme Court — in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. v. Bruen — struck down the state’s highly restrictive, century-old handgun law in June 2022.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature quickly followed the Supreme Court decision by enacting a host of new restrictions on acquiring and carrying concealed handguns in public — measures the appellate court has now largely approved.
“All Things Considered” host Sean Carlson recently discussed the appellate court’s ruling and what’s ahead with Jacob Charles, a constitutional scholar and gun law expert at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law in Los Angeles who’s been following the New York case.
Here’s a transcript of their conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Carlson: This ruling by the three-judge panel left much of New York’s handgun law in place. These are measures that were quickly put into place after the Supreme Court gutted the state’s century-old handgun law back in 2022. Can you tell us a bit of what the court decided and what it upheld in the new law, and also what it rejected?
Charles: There are three main parts to this opinion. One is that the court analyzed the changes to the handgun licensing law that New York made in direct response to the decision that struck down the state’s handgun law. In response, New York enacted provisions that restricted guns from a whole host of locations that it deemed sensitive. And then, finally, the appellate court addressed one other aspect of the law, which presumptively made it off limits to carry guns on private property unless you had an owner’s permission to do so.
And in each one of those aspects, the court upheld most…
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