Thread by @2Aupdates

"We are public defenders. New York’s gun laws eviscerate our clients’ Second Amendment rights." scotusblog.com/2021/10/we-are…

"Faced with a 3.5-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, Jose pled to a lesser charge. His sentence was one year on Rikers Island — a 'good deal' for simple firearm possession in New York City. For exercising a constitutional right, Jose is now a so-called violent felon."

"That licensing requirement is the key to New York’s ban on firearm possession: It is a pretext whose true purpose is to make firearm possession unlawful. For our clients, it makes the Second Amendment a legal fiction."

"In New York City, where we practice, the licensing structure allocates total and unilateral discretion to the NYPD to decide whose firearm possession is lawful and whose is a 'violent felony.' It charges hefty fees, disproportionately burdening indigent people."

"As former Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained, the city believes that racially disparate approach is justified. As a result, virtually all — about 96% — of the people arrested by the NYPD for simple firearm possession are Black or Latinx."

"These broad laws make every simple possession case a 'violent felony,' even reaching people who did not actually intend to possess a loaded firearm at all."

"The victims of this system include Victor Mercado, whom police arrested this summer after they allegedly found a handgun in his car. Unable to pay the $100,000 bail that a Bronx judge set, Mercado contracted COVID-19 at Rikers. Last week, he died."

That's the thing, though: They don't want gun laws to be challenged, ever.

"Instead, the Supreme Court must invalidate New York’s licensing requirement, so that the state can no longer pretextually violate its people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

"However, because of New York’s licensing requirement, none of this is legally relevant: Everyone who possessed a firearm for self-defense, but without a license, is a 'violent felon.' That does not square with a constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense."

"Like people in other states that properly recognize the Second Amendment, Jose and Mercado also had that right. They did not deserve to be punished for exercising it."