The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a challenge to a New York City law that prevents licensed gun owners from transporting their weapons to locations outside city limits.
The petition — brought by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association and three licensed gun owners who reside in the city — will thus become the first challenge to existing gun-control laws heard by the High Court since 2010.
The plaintiffs in the case allege that New York’s stringent gun-transportation law violates their Second Amendment rights, as well as the Constitution’s commerce clause, as it prevents them from transporting their guns to a vacation home or gun range outside of the city.
“Only New York City flatly prohibits its residents from removing their lawfully purchased and duly registered handguns from the city limits, even to transport them (unloaded, and locked up) to second homes at which they are constitutionally entitled to possess them, or to out-of-city shooting ranges or competitions at which they are constitutionally entitled to hone their safe and effective use,” the plaintiffs’ brief reads.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state in August 2016, finding that the plaintiffs’ rights were not infringed upon, since they can still practice at one of seven gun ranges in the city and, should they wish to keep a gun in a second home outside the city, could always obtain a second license from the relevant county.