Gun Control's Racist Roots
Exposed in SCOTUS Brief

As the Nov, 3 date for oral arguments in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen looms, Reason magazine is highlighting one of the many amicus briefs filed in support of the case, not only because it comes from "a coalition of public defense lawyer organizations," but because it cuts to the bone of racial and ethnic discrimination at the root of New York's firearm licensing requirements.

The 35-page brief, which may be read here, comes from the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, the Bronx Defenders, and Brooklyn Defender Services, and more than a half-dozen New York county public defender offices. They waste no time getting to the point.

Arguing the state's licensing requirements are unconstitutional, the brief observes, "They allow New York to deny Second Amendment rights to thousands of people, and to instead police and criminalize them for exercising those rights. Such a policy is the type that 'the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes … off the table'," quoting the 2008 Heller ruling.

Writing at Reason, Senior Editor Damon Root observes, "It's possible that such arguments will resonate with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court's leading critic of over-policing and related law enforcement abuses. As the public defenders make abundantly clear in their brief, a Supreme Court decision against New York's gun control scheme would be a victory not only for the Second Amendment but for criminal justice reform too."

The brief includes accounts of people whose lives have been turned upside down because of heavy-handed and narrow-minded enforcement of the state's gun laws .....