BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners have filed a motion for summary judgment with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking a final resolution to its lawsuit challenging New York state and municipal laws prohibiting private citizens from possessing and using stun guns and tasers. The case is Calce v. City of New York.
“Given New York’s history of wanting to keep its peaceable citizens defenseless, it comes as no surprise they would remain an outlier in having a ban which prohibits people from owning electronic arms,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Second Amendment ensures our ability to possess and carry bearable arms, including those that were not in existence at the time of the Founding, yet lawmakers in New York believe they somehow have the ability to ignore that guarantee. Prior to Bruen, other courts have found these bans to be incompatible with the Constitution, and we believe this case should not yield a different result.”
Joining SAF in the lawsuit are the Firearms Policy Coalition Inc. Each of the five individual plaintiffs in this case – Nunzio Calce, Allen Chan, Shaya Greenfield, Raymond Pezzoli and Amanda Kennedy – are represented by attorney David Jensen of Beacon, N.Y.
As noted in the brief, “Electronic stun guns are no more exempt from the Second Amendment’s protections simply because they were unknown to the First Congress than electronic communications are exempt from the First Amendment or electronic imaging devices are exempt from the Fourth Amendment.”
“The brief filed today demonstrates that stun guns and tasers are protected by the Second Amendment and we demand a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the ban,” said SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This case was filed in March 2021, and it’s past time for the court to once and for all declare this law unconstitutional.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
