N.Y. Federal Judge Upholds N.Y. Stun Gun/Taser Ban
Most courts that have considered the constitutionality of such bans have struck them down (and others have been recently repealed). But Judge Edgardo Ramos’s opinion yesterday in Calce v. City of N.Y. (S.D.N.Y.) upheld the New York state ban and New York City ban, concluding that the plaintiffs had the burden of introducing specific evidence of how common such weapons are:
“[T]he Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Therefore, Plaintiffs must show that stun guns and tasers are in “common use” today, and that they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”
Here, Plaintiffs have not provided any studies, reports, or data for the Court to conduct a “statistical inquiry” into whether stun guns and tasers are in common use. Plaintiffs do not “even identify the most basic of statistics including, for example, the number of stun guns and/or tasers purchased in the United States for any given year.” Thus, Plaintiffs provide “no evidence whatsoever to support their claim that stun guns and tasers are in common use in the United States for self-defense, let alone in New York City.”
Plaintiffs’ reliance on “findings and conclusions” from non-binding cases is of no moment. see People v. Yanna (Mich. Ct. App. 2012) (“Hundreds of thousands of Tasers and stun guns have been sold to private citizens, with many more in use by law enforcement officers.”); Avitabile v. Beach (N.D.N.Y. 2019) (“[B]ased on the limited data available, the parties agree there are at least 300,000 tasers and 4,478,330 stun guns owned by private citizens across the United States.”); O’Neil v. Neronha (D.R.I. 2022) (“Defendants agree that millions of stun guns have been sold nationwide[.]”). Putting aside that the phrases “hundreds of thousands” and “millions” are indefinite, and that the figures in Avitabile were based on “limited data,” Plaintiffs do not provide a legal basis for the Court to adopt those findings. Moreover, Plaintiffs do not even attempt to argue how these scant sources could inform whether stun guns and tasers are commonly used for lawful purposes….
Plaintiffs also overstate the Supreme Court’s holding in Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), arguing that the case “erases any conceivable doubt concerning the weapons at issue.” In Caetano, the Court vacated a Massachuse
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