New York State prohibits law-abiding private citizens from owning body armor unless they work in certain specific professions. That nonsensical restriction began in 2022 and may be near its end.
Federal Judge John Sinatra Jr. ruled in Buffalo on Wednesday that the Second Amendment protects such personal defense items, and body armor is an “arm” that citizens have a right to possess. As is often the case, tragedies do not form the basis of sound law.
Gun rights supporters challenged misguided NY law
In 2022, a racist shooter wearing such armor killed 10 in a grocery store. This led to a scramble to do something, anything, and the best lawmakers could come up with was to make having this level of defensive protection illegal.
The Firearms Policy Coalition and three New York residents sued in 2024. In Heeter v. James, they argued that the ban prevents upstanding citizens from accessing what could be vital protection and prohibits “an entire class of arms.”
Judge Sinatra agreed.
In his opinion, he called the reactionary law “a novel outlier unsupported by any mainstream tradition from which [New York State] could rely on.”
This obviously harkened to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, handed down the same year as the supermarket massacre. It requires modern gun control to be rooted in the nation’s history and tradition of such laws.
Constitutional principles are enduring even as technology changes
The state’s argument that the Second Amendment was enacted when such protection was unavailable rang hollow.
“That Kevlar did not exist at the Founding does not alter the constitutional principles guiding the Court’s analysis,” Sinatra wrote. “If the Court were to adhere to the State’s analysis, technological advancements in handgun technology would render many today to be unusual and dangerous compared to technology that was available at the Founding.”
That’s why the Constitution is based on principles, not just a list of rules based on the facts of the time. Principles don’t change.
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