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Giffords Law Center
& Other Gun Violence Prevention Advocates Call on Supreme Court to Uphold New York State Gun Safety Law

Groups defend common sense concealed carry law against the NRA’s latest attack on public safety

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Today, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court, defending New York State’s concealed carry law. The law firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP represents Giffords on the brief. The amicus brief was filed in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which is expected to produce the most significant ruling on the merits of a Second Amendment case in over a decade. The Court will hear oral arguments in the case on November 3. 

Giffords joins other gun violence prevention groups, including Brady, Everytown for Gun Safety, and March for Our Lives, as well a broad coalition of civil rights groups, public health experts, legal scholars, and law enforcement officials in filing briefs in support of New York’s common sense gun safety measure. 

Gun extremists, including the NRA and its affiliate, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, are trying to force more guns into public spaces by advancing a radical interpretation of the Second Amendment. The law currently under threat regulates the standards for carrying concealed guns in public, with good reason. More people carrying more guns in public spaces means more gun violence, throwing countless people into needless danger and disproportionately affecting Black and Brown communities. 

“This lawsuit is a reckless, unprecedented attempt by the NRA to flood public spaces with guns, when Americans already have to fear gun violence on a daily basis,” said Hannah Shearer, Litigation Director at Giffords Law Center. “The NRA’s arguments go against hundreds of years of history setting clear limits on the carrying and use of lethal weapons in populated areas. More Americans than ever before support common sense gun laws, and we cannot let the NRA rob us of our basic right to exist safely and peacefully in public.” 

Giffords Law Center’s brief argues that the NRA is pushing for an unprecedented departure from traditional interpretations of the Second Amendment and self-defense law by depriving states of the right to impose even modest limits on concealed firearms in public. Giffords Law Center additionally argues that overturning New York’s law would increase the risk of gun violence at protests and particularly put more Black and Brown people in harm’s way

The amicus brief can be viewed here