by Kachalsky v. Cacace was the second of the post-McDonald cases brought by Alan Gura and the Second Amendment Foundation. Originally filed in July 2010, it challenged the arbitrary nature of the issuance of handgun permits in New York State and the requirement to show good or “proper cause”.
Today, Judge Cathy Seibel released her opinion granting the cross-motion for summary judgment from the State of New York and denying the motion for summary judgment for the plaintiffs. As the decision is a 60-page opinion, I have not had time to study it it in detail to see her reasoning.
As I said in the headline, damn!
UPDATE: I have quickly scanned through Judge Seibel’s opinion. She made the following points:
- The court had subject matter jurisdiction and the case was ripe. By denying them permits, the State of New York had injured the plaintiffs.
- Found that the Second Amendment Foundation did not have standing as an organizational plaintiff.
- Said none of the abstention doctrines pushed by New York applied in this case.
- Found that Second Amendment protections in Heller only applied to “hearth and home” and not to carry outside of the home.
- Says New York’s proper cause requirement meets the standard set forth in Heller.
- Argument about hunting “unavailing” as “as hunting does not involve handguns and therefore falls
outside the ambit of the challenged statute.” - Says intermediate scrutiny applies here and that NY Penal Code 400.00(2)(f) is related to a important governmental interest.
- Says equal protection claim fails as the statute “does not treat similarly situated individuals differently, but rather applies uniformly.”
UPDATE II: As Gray Peterson and Gene Hoffman reminded me by Twitter, Alan Gura lost both what was then Parker v. DC and McDonald v. Chicago at the District Court level as well as more recently Dearth v. Holder and Ezell v. Chicago. All four of those cases eventually became wins at the appellate level.
