A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that some of New York’s restrictive gun law that designates certain areas as “sensitive locations” can be allowed to stand.
A lower court in the case Frey v. New York, U.S. District Judge Nelson Stephen Roman plaintiffs’ request for an injunction in 2023. On September 19, a three-judge panel of the New York City-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision denying gun owners a preliminary injunction against parts of the state’s so-called “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA), which was passed as a kneejerk reaction shortly after the Bruen ruling overturned their previous law.
Plaintiffs argued that CCIA wrongly designates huge amounts of public areas as “sensitive locations” where firearms are completely banned, leaving them defenseless against armed criminals who don’t follow such laws. They specifically challenged three provisions of the law—ban on carrying guns in Times Square, the New York City subway, and the Metro-North commuter rail system, the complete ban on open carry and the requirement to obtain a city permit to carry in New York City, along with the state permit.
Unfortunately, the three-judge panel ruled that New York’s restrictions fall within the country’s historical tradition of gun regulation, a priority handed down in the Bruen decision. Consequently, the court held, the provisions did not violate the Second Amendment rights of the plaintiffs.
“There is perhaps no public place more quintessentially crowded than Times Square,” the court ruling stated. “Extending approximately from 40th to 53rd Street, and from Sixth to Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, this block at the heart of Manhattan, known as the ‘Crossroads of the World,’ teems with ‘rivers of neon and seas of tourists.’ The Nasdaq Exchange and Broadway theaters, as well as hundreds of restaurants and stores are among those that call it home.”
To the court, apparently the crowded nature of Times Square was enough to decide that it’s OK to infringe on people’s right to keep and bear arms there, along with some other places.
“In sum, we conclude that Plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on their Second Amendment challenges to the CCIA’s prohibition on firearm carriage in Times Square, the subway or the Metro-North rail system,” the ruling stated. “We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of the preliminary injunction with respect to these provisions.”
Concerning the statewide ban on open carry, the ruling stated: “We conclude that, although the district court erred in determining that Plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the open carry ban, the denial of the preliminary injunction was proper because Plaintiffs cannot show the requisite likelihood of success on the merits.”
Ultimately, plaintiffs could appeal the ruling to a higher court and hope for a better result For now, it remains a felony act even for licensed carry practitioners to carry a firearm in Times Square, on the subway or on commuter trains. Additionally, open carry remains banned statewide, and anyone licensed outside NYC still needs a special city permit to carry there.
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