Court Cases

While we do not file amicus briefs in every gun related court case, we do pick specific cases where our unique position as liberal gun owners in the community allows us to give insight that the courts may not consider otherwise. Since we started in 2019, we’ve done 3 amicus briefs and are working on a 4th.

These briefs take considerable time, effort, and money to create and file, and a portion of membership dues and fundraising goes towards our engagement in these efforts.

Here you can review all of the amicus briefs we’ve filed, with the Supreme Court as well as with lower courts, and we’ll provide some insight as to what and why we chose these specific cases.

Antonyuk v NY is a chilling case where the state has proposed to require all applicants for a carry permit to submit all of their social media logins as part of their review process to issue them a permit. As you can imagine, many of our members find this absolutely chilling from a first amendment standpoint. Speaking out against one stand or another, being in a specific political party, being a person of color, LGBTQ, or dozens of other examples show why this would be a terrible idea. We joined several other groups in this filing, including one that has no real interest in 2A issues. This case is ongoing.

NRSPA v Bruin wound up being a landmark case, as NY had been for years denying permits to carry based on “Proper Cause”, which had the impact of issuing no permits unless you were well connected or had a way of showing “extreme need”, which prevented ordinary citizens from obtaining a permit at all. The law was struck down in 2022 by the Supreme Court, and our brief supported striking it down.

NRSPA v NYC kept NYC residents from transporting their guns to a shooting range outside the city or to their second home outside the city. Our brief supported overturning this law, and the case forced NYC to allow residents to legally transport their firearms without fear of being thrown in jail.