At least half a dozen sheriffs in New York’s largely conservative upstate region are refusing to enforce a recently passed concealed carry law, the latest blow after both the US Supreme Court and a federal court struck down key pieces of anti-gun violence legislation in the Empire State.
The concealed carry law, passed in July after the high court shredded a century-old New York gun law in June, prevents people from carrying concealed weapons in “sensitive” areas like religious centres, health facilities, schools, subways and stadiums.
Sheriffs in counties across the state have decided to make enforcing the law a low priority, burying violations at the bottom of their list, or are refusing to take action at all against violations, according to an investigation from The New York Times.
“The people who are doing this, a lot of them are New York City legislators and they don’t have a clue,” Madison County sheriff Todd Hood told the paper, adding that “firearms are what made our country great”.
In July, the New York State Sheriffs’ Association called the law a “thoughtless, reactionary action” which would “restrain and punish law-abiding citizens”.
It’s the latest blow for gun control advocates in New York, who have sought to impose new restrictions on firearms after a white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo killed 10 people in May.
Over the summer, the US Supreme Court struck down New York’s longstanding concealed carry law, which gave officials considerable discretion over awarding concealed carry permits in the state – permits that are often hard to come by.
Writing for the high court’s conservative majority, Justice Clarence Thomas argued, “The government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” a standard legal scholars say is a substantial increase in the bar needed to legally justify new gun regulations. Previously, lower courts only held that a state must show an important government interest.
After the decision, observers predicted challenges to gun rules across the country, and they came swiftly.
In New York, after the state passed its new concealed carry law in response to the high court ruling, a man seeking to carry his gun in church challenged the new state legislation, arguing his Second and 14th Amendment rights were being violated.
Last week, a federal court temporarily struck down large parts of the law, including prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons in Times Square, writing the New York law “further reduced a first-class constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense.” Citing the Supreme Court, the federal court also argued the New York law was not rooted in historical tradition.
The state has vowed to appeal the decision.
The opposition from upstate sheriffs also underscores the growing prominence—and as some experts like the Anti-Defamation League argue, radicalism—of rural law enforcement officers.
So-called “constitutional sheriffs,” a movement of law enforcement officers who believe they have the final word on legal matters, not elected officials, have led the charge in states like Michigan to investigate Donald Trump’s false 2020 election conspiracies and resist Covid restrictions.
