New York enacted a first-of-its-kind law prohibiting law-abiding residents-who are not engaged or employed in an eligible profession-from purchasing body armor for self-defense.
asserted
who → enact → defense
New York enacted this legislation "to further strengthen gun laws."
asserted
York → enact → laws
New York's body armor legislation, however, violates the Second Amendment….
asserted
legislation → violate → Amendment
In D.C. v. Heller (2008), the Court made it clear what the term "Arms" meant when the Second Amendment was ratified.
asserted
Amendment → make → what
In explaining that "[t]he 18th-century meaning" of the term "Arms" is "no different from the meaning today[,]" the Court quoted multiple dictionaries from the Seventeenth Century.
asserted
Court → explain → Century
Specifically, "[t]he 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary defined 'arms' as '[w]eapons of offence, or armour of defence.'
asserted
edition → define → defence
Timothy Cunningham's important 1771 legal dictionary defined 'arms' as 'any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.'
asserted
man → define → another
As a result, this Court is bound by Heller's textual analysis, which demonstrates that the word "arms" included armor at the Nation's founding (as it does today)….
asserted
it → bind → founding
The State submits that, during the Founding Era, armor "had become rare or even entirely obsolete in everyday American English" and "the protective leather gear of th[e] pre-Kevlar era was notoriously ineffective against bullets, meaning civilians did not typically wear such body protection either."
asserted
civilians → submit → protection
This argument runs headlong into the definitions adopted by Heller, nevertheless indicating that the term "arms"—as it was defined in the Founding Era—included defensive body armor that (according to the State) was supposedly rarely utilized in 1791.
uncertain
that → run → 1791
Body armor may be used more today than Defendants' understanding of its use in 1791.
uncertain
armor → use → 1791
But it strains credulity to say that an arm that was rarely used during the Founding Era—yet still protected by the Second Amendment per Heller—is no longer protected despite being much more common among Americans today.
asserted
that → strain → Americans
Moreover, this conclusion is consistent with Heller's clear statement that the Second Amendment "extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."
asserted
that → extend → founding
While body armor may not have been in common use at the founding—although the commonly understood definition of "arms" included body armor—neither were other arms commonly used for self-defense, such as resolvers, semiautomatic pistols, and stun guns.
uncertain
arms → understand → resolvers
…
Even if the definitions put forth by the Supreme Court in Heller are dicta, this Court has an "obligation to accord great deference to Supreme Court dicta," absent a change in the legal landscape.
asserted
Court → put → landscape
Defendants have not suggested—nor can they—that a change in the legal landscape exists that would require this Court to ignore how Heller defined the term "arms."
uncertain
Heller → suggest → term
Because Plaintiffs have demonstrated that body armor is an "arm" protected by the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the State to justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of arms regulation.
asserted
it → demonstrate → regulation
The State fails to do so….
asserted
State → fail → ?
The State argues that there exists a "centuries-long historical tradition" demonstrating that, "when body armor has been in use, it has been subject to government regulation."
asserted
it → argue → regulation
Yet, the State is unable to identify a single regulation on body armor post-ratification….
asserted
State → identify → ratification
The State contends that its body armor ban is consistent with "English monarchs and parliaments" who "regularly issued laws forbidding or restricting the wearing of armor …."
asserted
who → contend → armor
Not only is this analogy irrelevant to the regulation of arms in the United States, but it also ignores the historical reason the right to keep and bear arms is "understood to be an individual right protecting against public and private violence."
asserted
right → ignore → violence
Accordingly, the Court interprets the English history put forth by the State in light of these [principles] and articulates that it is not "sufficiently probative" to defend New York's body armor ban….
asserted
it → interpret → ban
The State points to the Statute of Northampton for support for its position that there is a long-standing tradition of restricting who can purchase body armor.
asserted
who → point → armor
The law prohibited anyone to "go, nor ride armed by night, nor by day, in fairs markets, nor in the presence of the justices or other ministers, nor in no part elsewhere, upon pain to forfeit their armor to the King and their bodies to prison, at the king's pleasure."
asserted
law → prohibit → pleasure
Notwithstanding the ink that continues to be spilled over this law, the Supreme Court has stated that "the Statute of Northampton—at least as it was understood during the Middle Ages—has little bearing on the Second Amendment adopted in 1791."
asserted
it → continue → 1791
The State's analogy to the Statute of Northampton is an attempt to justify its body armor ban by speculating that individuals only wear body armor to terrify the public.
asserted
individuals → justify → public
Yet, this ignores the reality put forth by Plaintiffs, that the public is more likely to reach for body armor to protect themselves from terrifying circumstances.
asserted
public → ignore → circumstances
In Rahimi, the Supreme Court concluded that "[a]n individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment."
uncertain
individual → conclude → Amendment
Here, however, the State is suggesting that a merely broad-based suspicion over the population at large is sufficient to justify a universal ban on the sale and purchase of a specific type of arm.
asserted
suspicion → suggest → arm
And to the extent that the State analogizes this to prohibiting criminals from purchasing body armor, other statutes already criminalize the use of body armor while committing violent crimes.
asserted
statutes → analogize → crimes
The State's categorical prohibition of a specific type of arm to law-abiding citizens at large, is untethered from any historical tradition-including the Statute of Northampton….
asserted
prohibition → abide → Northampton
Nicolas J. Rotsko (Fluet) represents plaintiffs.
asserted
Rotsko → represent → plaintiffs
The Aporia
