Today, the National Rifle Association filed an amicus brief in Calce v. New York City, arguing that New York City’s prohibition on the possession of stun guns and tasers is unconstitutional.
The district court upheld the ban, reasoning that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that stun guns and tasers are protected by the Second Amendment because they did not prove that the arms are in “common use.”
Now before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the NRA filed a brief in the case arguing that the district court misallocated the burden of proof. The brief explains that it is not plaintiffs’ burden to demonstrate that stun guns and tasers are “common” enough to earn Second Amendment protection. Rather, the Supreme Court has made clear that all bearable arms (including non-firearm arms such as stun guns and tasers) are presumptively protected, and the government bears the burden of demonstrating that an arm falls outside the Second Amendment’s scope.
The brief further notes that, under Supreme Court precedent, an arm can be banned only if it is both dangerous and unusual. And the government did not show that stun guns and tasers—which are owned by hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans for lawful purposes such as self-defense—are either dangerous or unusual, let alone both. Therefore, New York City’s ban is unconstitutional.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights, and please visit www.nraila.org/litigation to keep up to date on NRA-ILA’s ongoing litigation efforts.
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