Civil Rights Advocates Announce U.S. Supreme Court Petition to Overturn NYS Pistol Permit System
Felano calls on all Erie County Sheriff candidates to support legal action against pistol permits
February 11, 2021 – BUFFALO, N.Y. – Civil rights advocates united for one common purpose Wednesday – to call upon the U.S. Supreme Court to halt New York State’s conspiratorial practice of denying the concealed carry pistol permit applications of the vast majority of state residents for unconstitutional and frivolous reasons and, sometimes, for no stated reason whatsoever.
The petition for certiorari sent to the nation’s highest court this week demands answers to a range of critical civil rights questions, to include:
- Should the State of New York be allowed to continue to blatantly violate the right to bear arms as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark decisions of District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago through its arbitrary, complex, and onerous pistol permit process?
- Is intermediate scrutiny a proper legal standard for reviewing statutes that burden the Second Amendment?
- Can courts properly evaluate Second Amendment claims without acknowledging the true purpose of the right to bear arms: to deter government tyranny in all its multifarious forms?
READ U.S. SUPREME COURT PETITION
“I want to call on all candidates in the Erie County Sheriff race to endorse this lawsuit,” 2ANYS Founder and Erie County Sheriff Candidate Steve Felano said. “This campaign for Erie County Sheriff should be squarely focused not on compelling citizens in Erie County to bow to edicts from Albany, but it should be about what the sheriff is going to do to protect the citizens of this county against imperial, unconstitutional edicts coming from the governor’s mansion. This case obviously does that and all the candidates in this race should join me in endorsing this particular lawsuit. I would also call on all sheriffs all across New York State to do that as well.”
“Gun control is simply a manifestation of the idiotic ideology of progressivism which magically assumes that there is a government solution to every human problem and uses inert pieces of metal as scapegoats for the many failures of progressive policies and the violence that those failures have produced,” Civil Rights Attorney and LibertyMovement.Org CEO James Ostrowski said. “All the evidence is to the contrary, that the Second Amendment works…we are getting killed in the courts since Heller and McDonald and, unless we change our strategy fast and boldly, as we’ve done in this brief, we will only continue to lose. And if Joe Biden names just one judge to the [U.S.] Supreme Court, we may lose our right completely.”
For more than a decade, county judges across New York State have ignored the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic District of Columbia v. Heller decision. This decision held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms disconnected from service in a militia. It also articulated two restrictions, and two restrictions only, on firearms possession and carriage. These include felony conviction and/or involuntary civil commitment under mental health law.
Through a calculated conspiracy against citizens’ Second Amendment civil rights, county judges from one side of the state to the other have forced an imaginary ‘May Issue’ concealed carry permitting scheme on the residents they’re supposed to serve. This scheme mandates that citizens treat their county government like an overbearing parent, writing a ‘mother may I’ letter to judges, asking for permission to exercise a civil right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to all who don’t fall into the restricted classes articulated by the District of Columbia v. Heller decision.
In the current era of rising political violence, heightened use of government force to maintain the illusion of democratic legitimacy, and Albany’s fumbled bail reform rollout, New York State’s pistol permitting scheme places all New Yorkers at risk of severe bodily harm and death. New, politically motivated domestic terrorism laws and escalating Army National Guard deployments contrived for media consumption will not keep New York State residents safe. The Second Amendment will, and it’s time for county and state government agents to accept this obvious fact of life. It’s time to consign New York State’s unconstitutional, authoritarian, racist pistol permit regime to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
All across New York State, county judges ignore federal law and simply hold that ALL citizens should be denied the right to keep and bear arms outside the home for any reason, or for no reason at all. This permitting scheme, devoid of constitutional justification and completely conjured out of thin air by rogue county judges, is clearly unconstitutional and must be reversed. 2ANYS continues its partnership with Civil Rights Attorney James Ostrowski to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to decisively reverse New York State’s unlawful pistol permitting scheme and free all New Yorkers’ Second Amendment civil rights from an artificial prison built by the authoritarian bureaucrats and kleptomaniacs controlling state government.
2ANYS is New York State’s premier civilian rearmament enterprise securing maximal Second Amendment civil rights by, with, and through The People. At the tip of the spear in the fight against progressive gun control, their innovative strategies expand non-compliance with, and non-enforcement and repeal of, Albany’s imperial disarmament edicts. 2ANYS promotes a strong martial culture across New York State through firearms proficiency development, combat tactics training, and firearms industry events. The enterprise actively educates the public on the immense successes delivered by America’s Second Amendment, and the deplorable suffering imposed by governments that forcefully disarm their citizens. By, with, and through The People, 2ANYS will defeat Albany’s unconstitutional civilian disarmament industrial complex, and pass that victory on to the next generation to defend as their own. Learn more at WWW.2ANYS.COM.