Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling affects New York City’s ‘moral character’ restrictions, new ruling states.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down New York state’s restrictive gun permitting scheme means the New York City rules that enable officials to deny people firearm licenses over their moral character violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge has ruled.
New York officials “have failed to show that the broad discretion afforded to licensing officials” under city code “is consistent with the history and tradition of firearm regulation in this country,” U.S. District Judge John Cronan said in his ruling.
City law lets officials reject applications for gun permits if they determine a person is not “of good moral character” or for any other “good cause.”
The ruling came in a case brought by Joseph Srour, a New York City resident who applied for gun licenses from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 2018 and 2019.
NYPD officials denied the applications because Mr. Srour had been arrested, fined for traffic violations, and had his driver’s license revoked. He was never convicted of a crime.
The arrests, Mr. Srour not disclosing them to the NYPD, and his driving record “reflect negatively upon your moral character and casts grave doubt upon your fitness to possess a firearm,” city officials wrote in one of the rejection letters.
Mr. Srour argued through attorneys that his arrests and driving record had nothing to do with his Second Amendment right to carry guns.
“An individual’s driving history has no cognizable, historically recognized basis as a prohibitor to the possession, purchase, or use of firearm,” his complaint stated.
City lawyers said in response that the challenged regulations were “presumptively constitutional” under U.S. Supreme Court decisions, pointing to how there have been rules in the United States dating back to the 1700s restricting gun ownership by people “deemed dangerous or potentially dangerous.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen found that New York state’s scheme for gun permits was unconstitutional because it infringed on the American right to own and possess guns. The scheme required people to prove that they had “proper cause” to carry outside their homes.
By Zachary Stieber
