Following an October ruling in which he temporarily halted some pieces of New York’s new concealed carry statute (which an appeals court then reversed), Syracuse Federal Judge Glenn Suddaby went further Monday, issuing an injunction blocking many portions of the law from going into effect. The blame for this bad ruling falls half on Suddaby and half on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In its Bruen decision this summer, the high court invalidated New York’s century-old “may issue” firearm licensing system, which had proven extremely useful to police to keep gun violence in check. Justice Clarence Thomas and his colleagues nixed the law on sweeping ideological grounds, interpreting the Second Amendment far more broadly than ever before and demanding that restrictions on gun-carry rights be firmly rooted in history (or, better put, conservatives’ skewed reading of history).
In the wake of the decision, the Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul swiftly but in good faith tried to protect New York in a manner permitted by the Supremes — restricting the carry of weapons in more “sensitive places” and redefining who now gets to carry concealed weapons.
