Appeals court turns away challenge to New York gun laws, including ban on open carry of firearms

A federal appeals court rebuffed constitutional challenges to New York State’s gun laws Friday in a case that wound through the court system for years.

In question was whether New York could ban open carry of firearms, require a specific permit to carry a firearm in New York City and prohibit firearms from being carried in "sensitive locations," like aboard public transportation or in Times Square.

"The government has demonstrated that each of the challenged provisions falls within our nation’s historical tradition of gun regulations and thus, does not violate the Second Amendment," Circuit Justice Joseph F. Bianco, of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in the decision.

The decision favored New York City, its police department and the state police.

"New Yorkers deserve to feel safe on public transportation and everywhere in our state, and today’s decision affirms that right," state Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Bianco turned to Reconstruction Era decisions out of the South to defend the historical context of New York's challenged laws. For example, in 1872, a Texas state court upheld a law prohibiting weapons in public forums.

"The Second Amendment does not guarantee the right ‘the right to carry upon his person any of the mischievous devices inhibited by the statute, into a peaceable public assembly, as, for instance into a church, a lecture room, a ballroom or any other place where ladies and gentlemen are congregated together," Bianco wrote, citing the 1872 case.

He then opined that "there is perhaps no public place more quintessentially crowded than Times Square," drawing a through line to the Reconstruction Era market or town square.

On the state’s open carry prohibition, Bianco pointed to an 1858 decision out of the Louisiana Supreme Court, which found criminalizing concealed carry "did not infringe the right of people to keep or bear arms," but rather, "it is a measure of police, prohibiting only a particular mode of bearing arms which is found dangerous to the peace of society."

The ruling was heralded by the gun-control group Everytown, which described it as a "major victory for gun safety."

In the court’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction, or a temporary halt to New York’s laws, the court noted its ruling "does not determine the ultimate constitutionality of the challenged provisions."

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Amy L. Ballantoni, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plaintiffs include a Westchester County man, Jason Frey, who said he carries his firearm on the Metro-North Railroad into Grand Central Terminal and in Times Square, and an Orange County man, William Sappe, who said he seeks to carry his firearm to New York City. A separate plaintiff, Jack Cheng, of Nassau County, was not a part of the particular action in this case.