Shockingly, this article at CBS New York is not hyperventilating over Bruen.

As CBS2’s Alecia Reid reports, in New York, carry permits are getting easier to come by. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s restrictive handgun laws.

[…]

Applications are expected to skyrocket, but it doesn’t mean crime will increase.

“The vast majority of gun crimes in New York are committed by people who do not have gun permits at all,” Feldman said.

The reforms go into effect Sept. 1. People who were recently rejected because of the current statute can reapply within the next 60 days, all free of charge.

Bravo to Alecia Reid for playing it straight down the line. Although according to her bio, she’s a communist. Via The Gun Feed.

I’ve lost count, but many, many times.  It’s too late to avoid suffering at least some financial damage.

Due to the New York state decision to shutter non-essential businesses as part of the COVID-19 response plan, Kimber Mfg. Inc. has stopped production at its New York facilities.

Production continues at Kimber’s new, state-of-the-art Troy, Alabama manufacturing facility, with the entire line of handguns and long guns being assembled. Due to the large number of parts manufactured in Yonkers and the state-mandated closure in New York, the Troy facility will suspend production on March 31^st. “This situation is unfortunate as we were off to an incredible start in gun shipments in 2020 and were running our factories seven days a week.

One commenter says “For the life of me, I cannot understand why any firearm related manufacturer would do business in a state, the government of which is committed to the destruction of that business.”

Me neither.

But it’s a big one.  David LaPell writing at Ammoland.

The bill (S7065) (A01589) would make it mandatory that every gun owner in the state of New York get a mental health evaluation before they could purchase a firearm. This wouldn’t be a one-time thing, this would be for every gun and of course, these evaluations would have to be held at a location of the state of New York’s choosing and would be at the expense of the person looking to purchase the gun.

[ … ]

There is also a larger and much more sinister motive to think about here. New York passed its own version of a Red Flag law last year, and unlike other states, it allows schools and just about anyone else to petition the courts to get an ERPO and have someone’s firearms taken away. Now can you imagine every gun owner now having to be subjected to a mental health exam, over and over again, where one wrong question, one misconstrued answer or even the bias of the doctor could not only prevent someone from legally buying the gun they were looking to get, but also lead to the police coming to the house and taking the rest and with a doctor’s word versus the citizen’s in court, the gun owner, soon to become the former gun owner, wouldn’t stand a chance legally.

This is a page right out of the communist playbook.

Not even mentioned is the fact that mental health professionals don’t want to be involved in such things, don’t believe that their trade can accurately predict those predisposed to violence, and certainly don’t want the liability and professional risk.

Always remember what reader Menckenlite said.

Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science. See, e.g., Boston University Psychology Professor Margaret Hagan’s book, Whores of the Court, to see how arbitrary psychiatric illnesses are. Peter Breggin, Fred Baughman and Thomas Szasz wrote extensively about abuses of psychiatry. Liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame mental illness. Neither have any causal connection to violence. The issue is criminal conduct, crime. Suggesting that persons with legal disabilities are criminals shows the nonsensical argument of this politician and his fellow control freaks. Shame on them.

The communists never sleep.  We can’t either.

That article title comes from CNBC, not me.

The Supreme Court seemed unlikely to deliver a major win for gun-rights activists during arguments on Monday in the first significant Second Amendment case the justices have heard in nearly a decade.

The case was challenging a New York City gun regulation that barred the transport of handguns outside of the city, even to a second home or firing range. After the court agreed to hear the case, though, the city did away with the regulation and the state passed a law that prevented the city from reviving it.

While court conservatives including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito seemed eager to use the case to address the reach of the Second Amendment, it appeared likely after an hour of arguments that Chief Justice John Roberts would side with the court’s liberals to dismiss the matter altogether as moot in light of the repeal of the regulation.

Paul Clement, who argued on behalf of three gun owners in New York and a state affiliate of the National Rifle Association, argued that the case was still active because his clients could potentially seek monetary damages in the future.

Clement also argued that even under New York’s new regulations, his clients could still be penalized if they did not travel directly to a firing range outside the city, such as if they stopped for coffee.

But Richard Dearing, an attorney for New York, said that the city guaranteed that gun owners would not be prosecuted for such stops. And he said that any challenge to the new regulations would have to be argued in a future battle.

“There may be a controversy here. But it’s a new controversy that will have to be litigated in a new case,” Dearing said.

Clement, who argued for 20 minutes, had little time to address the merits of New York’s gun regulation. Instead, he spent nearly all of his arguments fielding questions from the court’s liberal wing about why the justices should rule on the case at all.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked the first question of the day, sounded off on a theme that would be heard throughout.

“The state says: Thou shalt not enforce the regulations. So, what’s left of this case?” Ginsburg asked.

The court’s other liberals also wrestled with Clement over whether it was proper for the court to decide the case.

“You’re asking us to opine on a law that’s not on the books anymore,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama-appointee.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, said he did not think it was bad “when people who have an argument settle their argument.”

Roberts asked few questions throughout. But at one point, the chief justice asked Dearing if it was possible that individuals who violated the old regulation could be targeted in any way by the city, even though it is no longer in force. Roberts also asked whether gun owners could still seek damages if the high court were to find the case moot.

Dearing responded that the gun owners would face no consequences for any past violations of the regulation, and he left open the possibility for damages, though he suggested there could be a time limit.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is known to have an expansive view of the Second Amendment, did not ask any questions.

One wrinkle during arguments came from a difference in opinion between Clement and Jeffrey Wall, the Justice Department’s principal deputy solicitor general, who was arguing in favor of the gun owners.

Gorsuch asked Wall whether he agreed with Clement that the potential for gun owners to be prosecuted for stopping for coffee while traveling to a gun range kept the case alive.

“Why isn’t that good enough?” Gorsuch asked.

Wall said it was a “close call” and a “hard question” but stopped short of endorsing the argument. Instead, Wall emphasized that the gun owners could still seek monetary damages.

All in all, the justices spent just a few minutes probing the key constitutional question that gun-control activists feared would be on the table and that gun-rights groups hoped the court would address.

“Jeffrey Wall, the Justice Department’s principal deputy solicitor general … was arguing in favor of the gun owners.”

Sure he was.  He didn’t even know if the possible overbearing enforcement of the revised law kept the case alive.  He wasn’t even smart enough to jump on the plank Gorsuch gave him.  Or perhaps he was, and this failure was nefarious.

Good job, DoJ.  Good job, Barr.  Good job, Trump.  You presented a divided front to the Supreme Court.  Y’all can all mark this one as a colossal failure.

And as for the Supreme Court, along with the statists on the court, everyone except Gorsuch and Alito (and also presumably Thomas) let this go, allowing New York to impose yet more restrictions in the future, requiring the next case to be brought back, if it even makes it that far.  Roberts did exactly what we expected him to do.

So if you thought that the black-robed tyrants were going to help you by recognizing your God-given RKBA … sucker!

David Codrea.

Furthermore, by withholding the names of the companies, important information is being withheld from citizens who it appears are at legal risk. I hope your office can see that if the intent is to establish compliance with the law, decisions made by those citizens should be informed. I maintain that it is in the public interest to make that information known, and that should take precedence over the reportedly stated intent of AG James not to “direct business” to companies engaging in business that is lawful in other jurisdictions.

I think it would make it a good day to be able to reward those companies, and to piss off the AG of New York.

Amy Howe:

Earlier this month, New York City sent a letter to Scott Harris, the clerk of the Supreme Court, to inform the justices that a challenge to the city’s ban on transporting guns outside the city limits is moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. The Supreme Court did not accept the letter, perhaps because the challengers in the case objected. The challengers argued (among other things) that the letter was “premature” because the developments that the city cited as rendering the case moot had not yet gone into effect. With changes to both state and city laws now in place, the city returned to the court today, urging the justices to remove the case from their docket for the upcoming term.

Changes to the city’s rules, the city explained, will allow licensed gun owners to transport their guns to, among other places, second homes and shooting ranges outside New York City. Those rules went into effect on July 21. And on July 16, the city continued, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that changes state laws to allow licensed gun owners to transport their handguns to other places – again, such as second homes, shooting ranges and shooting competitions – where they are legally allowed to have them.

These developments, the city told the court again today, mean that the case is moot. The challengers, the city reasoned, had asked only for the “modest ability to transport their licensed firearms, unloaded and locked away separate from ammunition, to a shooting range or second home outside city limits” – which they now are able to do, the city stressed. The case should therefore be dismissed as moot or, at the very least, be sent back for the lower courts to decide whether it is moot.

I’m not sure I completely understand this.  Amy’s publication date for this post is July 22, the same evening I’m writing this.

We’ve already covered the NYC argument to the Supreme Court, as well as the response letter by Paul Clement.  Is there yet another letter from NYC to the Supreme Court after Clement’s response, and if so, it doesn’t seem to be linked at Amy’s place?

At any rate, if I interpret this correctly, NYC just won’t give up making stupid arguments.  Quite obviously, they’re afraid of what comes next.

To The Supreme Court.

There are, after all, substantial reasons to doubt that these ever-evolving developments will actually moot this case, as it is not at all clear that the City has foresworn the power to control where its residents may transport their duly licensed handguns or that there are no continuing effects from past violations of licensing restrictions that the City has consistently maintained are consistent with the Second Amendment. As for the state legislation to which respondents point, it is not even clear that it will ever take effect, rendering the question of what effect, if any, it will have on petitioners’ claims manifestly unripe.

Moreover, a party asserting that its own actions have mooted a case has “the ‘heavy burden of persua[ding]’ the court that the challenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up again.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Slater, 528 U.S. 216, 222 (2000) (alteration in original) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000)). That heavy burden should be heavier still where, as here, a defendant’s about-face is unabashedly motivated by a desire to deprive this Court of jurisdiction to review the defendant’s actions. See Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307 (2012) (“Such postcertiorari maneuvers designed to insulate a decision from review by this Court must be viewed with a critical eye.”). There are particularly strong reasons to doubt the sincerity of any claim that the City has forever changed its errant ways here given respondents’ declaration that they have no intention of taking any position before this Court on the constitutionality of the rules that they have changed. Indeed, the procedural irregularity of respondents’ actions to date makes plain that their goal is not just to try to moot this case, but to do everything they can to avoid ever having to take a definitive position on those issues. It is hard to understand why respondents are so reluctant to take any position on the questions on which this Court granted certiorari if they have no intention of resuming the challenged conduct or materially similar conduct in the future.

I have in on good authority that in legal circles, they call that the “slamma-jamma body-cramma.”

Prior: New York City Lawyers Argue To The Supreme Court That It Should Dismiss Case Against City’s Weapon Transportation Ban.

Daily Caller:

The Supreme Court should dismiss a challenge to New York City’s gun transportation ban because a new ordinance will moot the case, city lawyers told the justices Wednesday.

The ordinance and a newly enacted state law will give the plaintiffs who challenged the transportation ban everything they have sought in court, making dismissal the appropriate course, city lawyers wrote in a letter to the high court.

The new city regulation gives petitioners everything they have sought in this lawsuit,” assistant corporation counsel Richard Dearing wrote. “The new state law, upon signature by the governor, will make the case doubly moot.”

If the case is not dismissed, the city will continue arguing the dispute is moot in a legal brief due Aug. 5. They will not address the merits of the controversy, Dearing wrote.

If, however, this Court prefers to allow briefing (and potentially oral argument) to play out, respondents will file a brief on the designated due date maintaining in greater detail that the case is moot,” the letter reads.

Respondents do not intend to address whether the Constitution entitles petitioners (or any other residents of New York City with premises licenses) to transport their handguns from their homes in the city to second homes, or to firing ranges or shooting competitions beyond municipal borders, where they have a legal right to possess them. Respondents no longer have any stake in that legal question,” it adds.

It’s men like this who give other lawyers a bad name and reputation.

Essentially, they have presumed to boss the Supreme Court around, and told them that the case should be dismissed because it is moot, but if the case isn’t dismissed, they’ll just argue extensively in front of the court, attempting to embarrass everyone there, that the case is moot.

Not only that, they’ve conceded absolutely nothing, except what the petitioners ask for.  They didn’t concede that the constitution has any bearing on this, and they won’t argue the case on those merits.

Take note of the legal tricks and shenanigans here.  If the Supreme Court decides that the constitution does have bearing, and that they do in fact have a right under the constitution to what they asked for in their petition, New York lawyers can respond by saying that the Supreme Court case is and was un-argued.  The Supreme Court decided something that wasn’t asked, something the SCOTUS really doesn’t like to do.  Now, the court can do just that, but my bet is that they won’t, not with Roberts at the helm.

They’re taking their ball and going home because they’re bitches.

News from New York:

A 64-year-old New York state man who was arrested for possession of an illegal handgun after he fatally shot a pair of prowlers rooting through his home Tuesday afternoon reportedly told the district attorney the weapon he used in self-defense was his dead father’s and he forgot to register it.

Ronald A. Stolarczyk was charged with felony possession of an illegal handgun, New York State Police said in a news release.

At about 2:40 p.m., officials say Stolarczyk interrupted a man and woman burglarizing his home in Deerfield, New York, located about four hours north of New York City. Stolarczyk then shot the two suspects, according to police.

But the 64-year-old was later arrested after authorities said they determined the handgun used in the shooting was illegally owned.

One of the alleged burglars, identified by state police as 57-year-old Patricia Anne Talerico of Utica, was pronounced dead at the scene. The second alleged intruder, her nephew, 27-year-old Nicholas Talerico of Utica, was transported to a hospital and died of his injuries.

“The word that we had originally was a possible home invasion, possible suspect running at large,” New York State Police Trooper Jack Keller told WSYR-TV. “We were able to quickly identify who those people were identified as…but also we were able to determine quickly that there was no one else and the public was not in danger at all.”

Police said they found items belonging to Stolarczyk at Nicolas Talerico’s home, indicating he may have burglarized his home before, WCSI reported. It’s unclear if Stolarczyk knew him.

Stolarczyk was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a firearm and was transported to the Oneida County Jail, where he’s awaiting centralized arraignment, according to state police.

The District Attorney’s office and police continue to investigate Stolarczyk and the potential motive of the burglars.

Because the only people made in God’s image in New York are law enforcement officers, we can’t let you do that.  You’re the real criminal here, and not only that, we will investigate you until we find a motive behind this that justifies the home invasion.

Just because.  Suck it.  They don’t call us controllers for nothing, capisce?

The New York Times:

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Police Department held an unusual public hearing. Its purpose was to make a Supreme Court case disappear.

In January, the court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a New York City gun regulation. The city, fearing a loss that would endanger gun control laws across the nation, responded by moving to change the regulation. The idea was to make the case moot.

The move required seeking comments from the public, in writing and at the hearing. Gun rights advocates were not happy.

“This law should not be changed,” Hallet Bruestle wrote in a comment submitted before the hearing. “Not because it is a good law; it is blatantly unconstitutional. No, it should not be changed since this is a clear tactic to try to moot the Scotus case that is specifically looking into this law.”

David Enlow made a similar point. “This is a very transparent attempt,” he wrote, “to move the goal post in the recent Supreme Court case.”

The regulation allows residents with so-called premises licenses to take their guns to one of seven shooting ranges in the city. But it prohibits them from taking their guns to second homes and shooting ranges outside the city, even when the guns are unloaded and locked in containers separate from ammunition.

The city’s proposed changes, likely to take effect in a month or so, would remove those restrictions. Whether they would also end the case is another matter.

Until the Supreme Court agreed to hear the dispute, the city had defended the regulation vigorously and successfully, winning in two lower courts. In inviting public comments on the proposed changes, the Police Department said it continued to believe the regulation “furthers an important public-safety interest.”

Still, the city seems determined to give the plaintiffs — three city residents and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association — everything they had sued for. The plaintiffs, in turn, do not seem to want to take yes for an answer.

Move the goal posts, make it moot, and avoid an even bigger loss.  At least that’s what the controllers in New York are thinking.  Never allowing the free exercise of God-given rights is apparently their duty as they see it, regardless of their oath upon swearing in.  But the NYT writer, Adam Liptak, expands the discussion in history to one that is near and dear to our hearts.

There is a precedent for the city’s strategy, from a surprising source. The National Rifle Association tried a similar tactic in connection with the 2008 Supreme Court case that ended up revolutionizing Second Amendment law, District of Columbia v. Heller.

The N.R.A. was initially skittish about the case, which was brought by a scrappy group of libertarian lawyers led by Robert A. Levy.

“The N.R.A.’s interference in this process set us back and almost killed the case,” Mr. Levy said in 2007. “It was a very acrimonious relationship.”

As Mr. Levy and his colleagues were persuading a federal appeals court to strike down part of Washington’s tough gun control law, the N.R.A. tried to short-circuit the case.

“The N.R.A.’s next step was to renew its lobbying effort in Congress to repeal the D.C. gun ban,” Mr. Levy wrote in 2008 in a Federalist Society publication. “Ordinarily that would have been a good thing, but not this time.”

“Repealing D.C.’s ban would have rendered the Heller litigation moot,” he wrote. “After all, no one can challenge a law that no longer exists.”

Only an intensive countereffort kept the case alive, Mr. Levy wrote.

“After expending considerable time and energy in the halls of Congress, we were able, with help, to frustrate congressional consideration of the N.R.A.-sponsored bill,” he wrote.

The N.R.A. came around in the end. In the Supreme Court, it supported the suit, working closely with the lawyers who had brought it.

The NRA only “came around” because they couldn’t stop what was happening despite their best efforts.  Now this is interesting, yes?  The hand-wringers will claim that losing Heller would have been more harmful than any potential gain from a win.  Thus, the best strategy to avoid losing is never to enter the field of battle in the first place.

To some extent this has proven to be correct, only in that Heller hasn’t brought much in terms of recognition of the free exercise of gun rights.  There are still “may issue” states, and the notion of getting a carry permit in Hawaii is absurd.  Heller was so weak that the Supreme Court needed yet another similar to it (i.e., McDonald) that has also been simply ignored by the city of Chicago.

While every Podunk, no-name judge in America seems to think s/he can boss the federal executive around concerning immigration, and the administration kowtows to their demands, the rest of America seems to ignore the courts when it doesn’t like the outcome (e.g., Heller, McDonald).

On the other hand, losing Heller wouldn’t have been that big of a deal in my estimation, first of all because it has been mostly ignored by the lower and appeals courts, and second because states could still decide to honor our God-given RKBA regardless of whether the FedGov saw it the same way.  Open carry was allowed in North Carolina before Heller, and South Carolina was a shall issue state before either Heller or McDonald.

The hand-wringers might also claim that the NYT is only reporting this way to aid and assist the downfall of the NRA.  The more controversy that can be generated, it might be claimed, the more financial trouble the NRA will have.  Or so goes the thinking.

But when the smoke dissipates and you think about this clearly, the writer is only reporting the facts.  They are all out there for everyone to see.  The NRA either [a] didn’t actually want Heller to be argued before the Supreme Court, or [b] was so afraid of a loss that they took the strategy to stay off of the field of battle – retreat and give up before the battle even starts.

Is this the kind of organization that deserves your money?

Fortunately, it might not be that easy for New York.

The question of whether the changes to the city’s gun regulation will make the case moot is a hard one. The city lost an initial skirmish at the court last month when the justices turned down its request to suspend the filing of briefs while changes to the regulation were considered.

The plaintiffs opposed that request. “To state the obvious, a proposed amendment is not law,” they wrote.

The changes to the regulations will happen soon enough, though, and the Supreme Court will then have to consider whether there is anything left to decide.

The court has said the “voluntary cessation” of government policies does not make cases moot if the government remains free to reinstate them after the cases are dismissed. But formal changes in laws may be a different matter.

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, the court should not reward cynical gamesmanship.

“The proposed rule making,” they wrote, “appears to be the product not of a change of heart, but rather of a carefully calculated effort to frustrate this court’s review.”

This is actually good reporting.  I’ve come to expect far less from the NYT.