First, some background because I haven’t written on this stuff in a while. A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen. At issue was New York City’s restrictive and discriminatory system for issuing permits to carry a firearm.
The law in question was New York’s Sullivan Act, which I’ve written on before. It required a permit to carry a firearm outside the home, then set up an arbitrary, discretionary process under which minorities and union organizers were routinely denied. In fact, the original text singled out the Irish and used the phrase “swarthy immigrants.”
In the intervening decades, New York made it impossible for anyone but the rich and connected to get permits. A business owner in a bad neighborhood had no chance of being approved, but celebrities like Robert DeNiro and Bill Cosby certainly did. In one case, two members of Aerosmith were given permits in exchange for backstage passes even though they didn’t qualify at all. Continued...