Steven:
Now in this video we're going to be discussing a district court case that came out a few days ago out of New York. The case is called Christian V. James, and it was by the plaintiff's, an attack on New York's sensitive locations, doctrine. Places where you are prohibited from bearing arms, even if you have a CCW
Reporter:
Starting right now. It is a crime to bring a gun to schools, restaurants, hospitals, and entertainment venues like Times Square.
Governor of New York Kathy Hochul:
We don't need more guns on our streets. We definitely do not.
Reporter:
Governor Hope will launching a statewide ad campaign to make sure New Yorkers and those who visit are aware that while the Supreme Court made New York a new right to carry state, there are a slew of places where carrying a weapon will put you behind bars.
Governor of New York Kathy Hochul:
We don't need guns on our streets. We don't need people carrying guns at our subways. We don't need people carrying guns at our schools. We don't evil carrying guns in our places of worship.
Steven:
Now, this case is important. It's important clearly for the people of New York, but it also is quite important for a number of other states. You see, most states have accepted Bruin. They understand that a firearms law needs to be consistent with our nation's history, text and regulatory traditions as existed in 1791. But there are several states, New York being one of them, my own state of California being another classic example, and of course Hawaii that have effectively rejected Bruin. They don't like the idea of Bruin. They are appalled to be quite frank with you, that they no longer have the discretion in determining whether or not some should have the privilege as they had recently seen it, to be able to bear arms through the use of a concealed weapons permit. Their attempt to get around Bruin was to create this myriad of sensitive locations. In California, we had a court case called May v Bonta, which I talked about in a previous video, this case in Christian.
Steven:
This was effectively a challenge to New York's attempt to restrict what people can do with their firearms. So a little bit of, to kind of give you an understanding I guess, of what this particular case was about. So after Bruin, the New York legislature put forth a law that effectively said, look, we sort of acknowledged the fact that we are sort of obligated to give a law abiding citizen a concealed weapons permit, but we're going to make it virtually impossible for them to be able to exercise their right to keep and bear arms by essentially declaring all of New York a sensitive location. Now, when I say all of New York, that's a little bit of hyperbole, but the fact of the matter was it would be incredibly difficult for someone to be able to exercise their rights specifically as it relates to going into a location that is private property that's been opened up for public use.
Steven:
Now, that sounds a little convoluted, but probably a better way of describing that would be any retail store. This is private property that's been opened up by the owner for public use. Well, effectively, New York said An individual that controls private property for public use can make a large determination as to how they want their invitees coming onto their property. We are going to go ahead and presume that this private property owner does not want people coming onto their property bearing arms. So we're going to create what's been euphemistically referred to as the Vampire Rule, essentially stating that if a private property owner would like someone to come onto their property with a firearm, they are going to have to publicly disclose that with some form of signage purposefully inviting these people on. Now, if that signage is not present, then it will be presumed that they do not want people coming onto their property.
Steven:
Now, in most jurisdictions, if you intentionally go onto someone else's property without permission, that is a misdemeanor. It's called criminal trespass in New York for this limited scope, then we're going to make it a felony. Now, the upside of being a felony, I suppose, is that once you are designed as being a felon, you lose your firearm rights for the rest of your life, so they could kind of get things with essentially two birds with one stone. Not only could they go ahead and prosecute somebody for exercising their right to keep and bear arms, which they find to be an affront to the state of New York, but now they could go ahead and strip them of the ability to either keep or bear arms by making them a felon in totality. Well, there was a lawsuit that was filed and there was been many machinations going up and down the chain, but ultimately speaking a few days ago, the judge in the US District Court said this whole thing is utter garbage, and I use that in somewhat of a couch term.
Steven:
The opinion that the judge wrote is about 47 pages long, and he goes through a fairly detailed analysis of what the types of laws restricting the carriage of firearms were back in 1791, and essentially makes the decision that there was nothing even remotely connected to something like the Vampire rule that existed back then, and he has now enjoined that law from being enforced. This is interesting because in the state that I live in California, we had a decision called maybe Bonta, which has been somewhat of a split decision. So the Ninth Circuit actually encompasses a variety of different western states, Hawaii being one of them. Well, Hawaii, they created a response to Bruin as well as California creating a response to Bruin in the Hawaii decision, they effectively said that you could carry a firearm in someone's business if there is no sign, as long as the business owner verbally invites you in.
Steven:
California was far more draconian in California. They said even if the business owner invited you in without there being a sign, you're still in violation of the law. Well, California the Ninth Circuit said that the California restriction on the vampire rule was far too restrictive, but the Hawaii one, since it did allow for that verbal invitation that is acceptable. Well, just the court's own sort of philosophical reasoning here in the ninth Circuit is problematic. Now, there is a concept that's been bandied about recently called uncivil obedience. You've all heard the term before of civil disobedience. This is where people will acknowledge a law and then effectively decide that the law is immoral and they violate the law. We saw this certainly prior to the 1968 Civil Rights Act. Rosa Parks would be a great example of someone who engaged in civil disobedience when she took the seat at the front of the bus, which was illegal under that state law.
Steven:
Well, this new form of uncivil obedience is what we are now seeing manifesting in these various courts. Many anti-gun jurists, both at the trial level as well as at the appellate level, are very, very upset with Bruin, with this whole history text and firearms regulatory tradition approach, and they're upset not because they have to engage in a brand new type of analysis. They're upset because they know what that analysis will ultimately yield. Alright? The vast majority of modern gun control laws are in fact unconstitutional under a Bruin analysis. Now, they weren't terribly when we were using in the past, the intermediate level of review of is there a substantial state interest and does the law provide a reasonable fit? Because they knew that with that intermediate level of review that had been in place before Bruin, they would be able to hold these gun control laws and keep them on the books.
Steven:
Now that they are forced to use this history text and firearms regulatory tradition approach, well, they know they're kind of screwed. As a result, they have decided, at least it would appear that they have decided that they are going to effectively shove this down our throats. They're going to effectively use this analysis to come up with what could best be described as absurd results. This will in their mind cause people to throw up their arms and say, we need to have a new Supreme Court case that will affirmatively reject the Baren standard and come up with something that's far more concise that will, in all candor, allow them to continue to uphold gun control regulations. That is one of the reasons why we see the Hawaii law being upheld, but the California law being overturned. Now, fortunately, we do have a number of pro-gun jurists, or I shouldn't even say pro-gun pro constitutional jurist.
Steven:
For all I know, they may very well be anti-gun themselves, but they are upholding the constitution. They are following the dictates of their superior court, their superior tribunal, in this case, the Supreme Court setting out an articulable test that we use in order to determine whether or not a gun control statute is unconstitutional. This is going to have what could best be described as a churning effect because we've got these different jurists doing intellectual gymnastics to try to show how this gun control statute is, in fact, okay, and then other jurist actually following the test and saying, this gun control statute, which is substantively similar to the gun control statute that was just decided to be constitutional in one jurisdiction is unconstitutional. Next, that this is going to cause this sort of desire lotus for a better way of describing it, to create a new standardized test.
Steven:
I do not believe that is ultimately going to be successful. We've seen the state attack Bruin on the question as to whether or not the second Amendment has been abrogated in the first place by claiming that the weapons in question are not in common use. We've seen the state articulate the idea that the Second Amendment doesn't cover certain individuals that it does. I mean, there's no if ands or buts about that. We've seen the state essentially do their best to try and cut this off at the road before the analysis begins, and then once the analysis does begin where we start looking at history, text and tradition, they start throwing everything against the wall hoping that the jurist that's reviewing this is amenable to their arguments and is willing to uphold these unconstitutional provisions. One of my clients had said to me a little while back, it appears as though for every victory that we get and this New York case, it's a victory, but for every victory that we get, it's like we lose two in the process.
Steven:
And I said to him, look, you need to understand there is a deep seated emotional attachment to an anti-gun regime. In many, many jurisdictions, there are legislators that are incredibly impassioned about the idea of ensuring that their constituents are not able to exercise their civil rights, and there's a variety of reasons associated with this. On one basis, it's because these legislators are getting money from anti-gun organizations and others. They're legitimate, true believers. Regardless of that fact, these legislators are doing whatever they can to try to push back against Bruin. This will inevitably result in stronger guidance from the Supreme Court that will in fact happen. Guys, I'm going to pause this video for just a second. U-S-C-C-A, which sponsors these videos, they're doing a giveaway right now. It is very cool, and you're going to want to participate. Alright? Now, it does come to an end fairly soon and you can read all about it in the description below this video.
Steven:
You're going to want to click on that and see what it's all about. Alright, with that, let's get back to the video. In the meantime, for every gun control victory that we get, regardless of the jurisdiction, we celebrate that we have an individual justice that is in fact willing to stand behind the Constitution and for every loss that we suffer, we need to point that out. We need to see exactly what the type of reasoning is that the state is proffering so that we can continue to attack that. In any event, guys, if you'd like to email me, you can certainly do so at steven@artemishq.com. As always, train constantly, train consistently, train repetitively, and train with purpose. Above all else, stay safe.
Credit: USCCA