A major gun-rights organization wants the New York law banning civilian purchase of body armor declared unconstitutional and tossed into the dustbin of history.
On March 27, the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a motion for summary judgment with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in the case Heeter v. James. At issue is a New York state law that unconstitutionally criminalizes the purchase of simple personal protective equipment and shows just how far off the deep end the state is willing to go to prevent peaceable people from protecting themselves.
The motion states: “The Ban prohibits the purchase, acquisition, or sale of any ‘protective body covering intended to protect against gunfire,’ by anyone who is not a member of several ‘eligible professions.’ The Ban violates the Second Amendment-protected rights of all law-abiding New Yorkers with ordinary self-defense needs who desire body armor, including the individual Plaintiffs, and other similarly situated members of Plaintiff Firearms Policy Coalition.”
The motion further argues that New York’s defense of the law doesn’t live up to the criteria set by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Bruen ruling.
“New York simply cannot show that body armor is both dangerous and unusual, nor ‘unusually dangerous,’” the brief argues. “First, body armor is not dangerous, serving only defensive purposes. Second, because body armor is in common use for self-defense, it is not unusual, and no historical evidence the State could put forward could possibly justify the Ban. Indeed, New York is the first state to ban body armor for law-abiding citizens. The Body Armor Ban is a novel outlier that emerged more than 200 years after the Founding. There is no mainstream tradition from which Defendants could attempt to piece together potential analogs.”
Indeed, as the brief further notes, body armor is widely used in many other states.
“Body armor is legal in all states other than New York, creating a robust market for civilian body armor,” the brief states. “There are at least 70 manufacturers that sell body armor to the civilian marketplace, demonstrating strong consumer demand.
“A recent analysis of the body armor market by Precedence Research (“Precedence”) concluded that American civilians spent $41.9 million on body armor in 2022. Precedence projected that U.S. civilian expenditures on body armor would increase to $69.2 million by 2034, as the materials to make body armor become more and more lightweight, thereby increasing its popularity.”
In a news release announcing the court filing, FPC President Brandon Combs said his organization is “thrilled” to have filed the motion to strike down the “immoral” body armor ban.
“The government can’t ban peaceable people from buying defensive gear any more than it can ban them from buying handguns,” Combs said. “We’re going to make New York stop treating self-defense like a crime, full stop.”
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