A federal judge’s decision means that the city may no longer be able to consider people’s moral character when they apply for a firearms license.
www.nytimes.com
A federal judge ruled that
traffic violations are no bar to owning a gun in New York City.
The decision means that the city may no longer be able to consider people’s moral character when they apply for firearms licenses.
The case involved Joseph Srour of Brooklyn, a man who twice applied to keep rifles, guns and shotguns at home for protection — and twice was rejected. The Police Department, the licensing agency for firearms in the city, cited his 28 driving violations, 24 driver’s license suspensions and six driver’s license revocations.
Srour appealed each denial. The appeals department of the Police Department’s License Division turned down both appeals.
Srour then filed a suit in federal court in the Southern District of New York, challenging the decision of the Police Department, which had based it on the city’s administrative code: A firearm permit could be denied if an applicant lacks “good moral character” or if there is “other good cause.”
Judge John Cronan — whom Trump, as president, nominated to the bench in 2019 — ruled that the department had used “broad and unrestrained” standards in Srour’s case.
“Because that unconstitutional exercise of discretion occurs every time a licensing official applies or has applied these provisions, they each are facially unconstitutional,” he wrote, referring to the “good moral character” condition cited by the Police Department.
Judge Cronan also wrote that the notices the department sent Srour after rejecting his applications were not “models of clarity in explaining the precise legal grounds for denying his applications to possess firearms” and reflected “unfettered discretion.”
“Without doubt, the very notions of ‘good moral character’ and ‘good cause’ are inherently exceedingly broad and discretionary,” he wrote. “Someone may be deemed to have good moral character by one person, yet a very morally flawed character by another.”
My colleague Maria Cramer writes that Judge Cronan’s ruling was among the latest to stem from a Supreme Court decision,
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which overturned longstanding state gun regulations and said that citizens had a broad right to carry concealed weapons. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has heard repeated challenges to the New York law, reinstating it after lower courts struck down key portions.
The Police Department referred a request for comment on Judge Cronan’s ruling to the city’s law department. “Firearm licensing regulations crafted by the state and the city are lawful, consistent with the court’s decision in Bruen, and necessary to keep the public safe,” the city said in a statement.
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