New York body armor prohibition struck down by judge

According to a Trump-appointed judge, bullet-proof vests and other types body armor are “arms” protected under the Second Amendment.BUFFALO, N.Y. (CN) — A federal judge on Wednesday overturned New York state’s ban on the purchase of bullet-proof vests and body armor, determining it to be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment.According to U.S. District Judge John Sinatra in a in a 47-page opinion, the right for citizens to bear arms has historically included defensive body armor — the kind New York’s Penal Law 270.21 sought to restrict.Sinatra, a Donald Trump appointee, ruled that ordinary citizens’ understanding of the term “arms,” at the time of the country’s founding, would have included defensive body armor, and is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of arms regulation, as required under the Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.“Indeed, body armor is an ‘arm’ protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” Sinatra wrote. “As such, regulation in this area is permissible only if the state demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. New York fails that test.”Sinatra concluded state officials had failed to show that modern body armor is dangerous or unusual.The Las Vegas-headquartered Firearms Policy Coalition brought the civil complaint in 2024, alongside group members Benjamin Heeter and Joseph Wurtenberg, who claimed they sought to purchase body armor for lawful self-defense but were prevented from doing so by the New York’s ban.The Firearms Policy Coalition cited precedents in the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller and 2022 ruling in Bruenarguing that New York’s body armor ban was unconstitutional because founding-era definitions of “arms” included both offensive weapons and defensive armor.Firearms Policy Coalition president Brandon Combs called the ruling “a humiliating defeat for New York’s authoritarian gun control regime.”“Governor Hochul and Attorney General James actually made it a crime for peaceable people to buy body armor — equipment designed to stop bullets and save lives — and had the tyrannical audacity to call that ‘public safety,’” he wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “Not satisfied with banning guns, they tried to ban the means of surviving criminal gunfire, too. We said from the beginning that this immoral ban was absurd and unconstitutional.”Attorney General of the State of New York Letitia James, New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James, and Acting District Attorney for Erie County Michael J. Keane were named as defendants.The New York Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday it is reviewing the ruling.New York’s ban on the purchase body armor included carveouts for people and entities “engaged or employed in eligible professions,” including police officers, peace officer and individuals in military service in the state of New York or military or other service for the United States.Under the state law, unlawful purchase of body armor was a class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a class E felony for any subsequent offense.New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the body armor ban into law in 2022 as part of a larger piece of gun-control legislation, soon after a white supremacist — wearing steel-plated body armor sturdy enough to stop a handgun round fired by a store security — murdered ten Black people a Top’s Friendly supermarket in May 2022.The shooter, Peyton Gendron, is currently serving out a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in November 2022 to multiple state murder charges arising from the live-streamed massacre, but is set to stand trial in a separate federal death penalty case later this year.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads