NRA Sues NY Gov. Cuomo on Gun-Control Law

The NRA is taking New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to court as Cuomo prepares to run for president in 2016.

The National Rifle Association is supporting a lawsuit filed by its state affiliate, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, whose president, Tom King, serves on the NRA board of directors. 

In its complaint filed Mar. 21, the lawsuit challenges two provisions of Cuomo’s new gun-control law: one that bans a made-up type of firearm some politicians call “assault weapons” (there is no such type of firearm–it’s a collection of various types of guns that look scary but function like ordinary guns), and also the provision that bans ammunition magazines that hold more than seven rounds.

That last provision is most vulnerable to a constitutional challenge, as roughly 95% of handguns sold in America hold more than seven rounds, and are now illegal under this far-reaching law. The lawsuit challenges this New York statute for violating the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Both Supreme Court cases upholding gun rights in the past decade were about being able to have a handgun, so a law that makes illegal 95% of handguns should be a bridge too far for the courts.

The plaintiffs are being represented by a major New York law firm and by Dr. Stephen Halbrook, one of the most famous and accomplished Second Amendment scholars and lawyers on the country, who fought for part of the Brady Gun Law (signed by Bill Clinton and supported by future presidential candidate Hillary Clinton) to be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Printz v. U.S. (1997), and whose scholarly works were cited by the Supreme Court again in the historic 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right.

Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law and had published two academic works on the Second Amendment.