Kathy Hochul’s ‘overbroad’ New York gun law panned by liberals opposing social media registration
Kaelan Deese
After months of litigation against New York‘s latest gun control law, several liberal groups are standing in opposition to its measure requiring concealed carry permit applicants to register their social media accounts, saying it’s “overbroad” and unconstitutional.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, agreeing with its challengers in part that a requirement to register social media handles with the government violates the First Amendment right to speak anonymously online. The law went into effect last September with the backing of Gov. Kathy Hochul in response to the Supreme Court ruling that any gun restriction “demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history.”
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The brief was also joined by five groups — the DC Project Foundation, the Liberal Gun Group, the National African American Gun Association, the Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association, and an LGBT group called Operation Blazing Sword–Pink Pistols — all which voiced opposition to the social media registration requirement for permits.
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“Not only has the state failed to demonstrate that the social media registration requirement will actually further its goals, but it has also failed to acknowledge its costs: It will have a profound impact on the right to speak anonymously and associate privately online, and it will invite discrimination by licensing officials,” Anna Diakun, staff attorney at the Knight Institute, wrote in a press release on Feb. 8.
When Hochul signed the law in July of last year, she decried the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen as a “reckless decision” that is “senselessly sending us backward and putting the safety of our residents in jeopardy.” She also said she was “proud” to sign the law and that it would “strengthen our gun laws and bolster restrictions on concealed carry weapons.”
The Knight Institute submitted its filing in the case Antonyuk v. Hochul, slated for oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on March 20, and is one of five major legal challenges to the law. New York appealed to the 2nd Circuit in October, which temporarily brought the law back into effect, pending a final decision after oral arguments in the case.
When the Antonyuk case was before Northern District of New York Judge Glenn Suddaby in October, he struck down almost all of the “sensitive places” prohibitions in the law and also blocked part of the law that required concealed carry applicants to show they have a “good moral character” and required authorities to review their social media profiles.
Notably, the Knight Institute brief focused primarily on rebuking the social media measure found in the law, arguing against the “good moral character” requirement because it necessitates providing social media accounts in order to enforce that component of the law.
“Moreover, the requirement is significantly overbroad, implicating a vast amount of protected speech and association that bears no relation to the State’s policy goals. It applies to every applicant, regardless of whether the person’s application or character references give rise to an individualized reason to believe that the applicant poses a threat to public safety,” the Knight Institute’s brief added.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor decided on Jan. 11 to deny a request by challengers to the law to vacate the 2nd Circuit decision allowing the law to go back into effect, to which Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas clarified the decision was due to allowing the case further time to navigate the lower court channels and wasn’t based on the merits of the case.
As it stands, the Antonyuk case presents the most potent challenge to the law because it is challenging all of the law’s provisions and has been ruled almost entirely unconstitutional through Suddaby’s judgment ahead of the 2nd Circuit’s consideration of the state’s appeal.
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Additional measure-specific challenges to the law include cases such as Hardaway v. Nigrelli, in which Judge John Sinatra of the Western District of New York found the law’s ban on guns in houses of worship unconstitutional. Sinatra also found the law’s ban on guns on private property and houses of worship unconstitutional in Christian v. Nigrelli and Spencer v. Nigrelli, respectively.
Some parts of the law have been found to be constitutional, such as the case Gazzola v. Hochul, which seeks to challenge the law’s semiautomatic rifle license requirement and ammunition background check. The Supreme Court also declined a request by firearms dealers to block such provisions of the law on Jan. 18.