SCOTUS, STOP THE MERRY-GO-ROUND ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT ANTONYUK CASE IMPACTING BRUEN, GRANT THE WRIT OF CERTIORARI, AND EXPEDITE REVIEW ON THE MERITS
"THE FATE OF THE HIGH COURT'S DECISIONS IN HELLER, MCDONALD AND BRUEN AND THE FATE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT ITSELF, HANG IN THE BALANCE!”
Will the U.S. Supreme Court, at long last, review, on the merits, the first and most prominent Second Amendment case to come down the pike since the Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)?
We had our doubts but now have some hope, given New York Gun Owners filing of their PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI, requesting review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is the Antonyuk Petitioners SECOND request for review.
Petitioners filed their Second Petition for Writ of Certiorari last month, on January 22, 2025. The citation is 2025 U.S. S. CT. BRIEFS LEXIS 219 (No. 24-795).
The case has gone through several captioning iterations since Petitioners’ first filing challenging the New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s amendments to the State’s Handgun Law following the publication of Bruen on June 23, 2022.
In the first case, captioned Antonyuk vs. Bruen, referred to as Antonyuk I (an abbreviation that serves as a useful shorthand descriptor), Petitioners brought their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
The District Court dismissed the case “without prejudice,” on motion of the Court itself having found some of the parties to the action did not have standing to sue and, therefore, that the Court did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Dismissal of the case without prejudice meant that the proper party to the suit, could refile the case.
The District Court opined that the sole individual Party Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, did have standing to bring his action against the New York Government.
Ivan Antonyuk promptly refiled his case in the same Court, and Other individuals joined him as Party Plaintiffs.
Shortly, after filing their Complaint, in a case referred to by the courts as Antonyuk II, the Plaintiff Petitioners filed their motion for Preliminary Injunction to prevent the Hochul Government from lenforcing the amendments to the Handgun Law while the Parties litigated the issues presented at trial, on the merits.
The District Court granted Petitioners’ injunction and enjoined Governor Hochul from enforcing the core provisions of a sizable set of the amendments enacted immediately after the Bruen decision came down. The New York Government appealed the District Court’s granting of the Preliminary Injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Second Circuit’s decision is found in the case captioned Antonyuk vs. Chiumento, 89 F.4th 271 (2nd Cir. 2023), decided on December 9, 2023. Several other plaintiffs filed actions in NY sister Federal District Courts (the Southern and Western District Courts of New York) and their cases were merged with the U.S. Northern District of New York case.
But, the original Antonyuk II case would always remain the lead case challenging Governor Hochul’s amendments to the State’s Handgun Law, in response to Bruen, as reflected in the name of the principal plaintiff, whose case set in motion all actions since filed against the Hochul Government’s amendments to the New York Handgun Law.
What provoked these challenges? Responsibility falls on the NY Government.
Governor Hochul did not comply with the High Court’s rulings and she made plain that her Government had no intention of complying with the Bruen rulings.
In our system of law and justice the High Court can’t act on its own initiative to force compliance of an impudent State, until a cause of action comes before it.
The Court needs a case and controversy brought before it for the Court to have jurisdiction sufficient to preside over it. That requires a legal cause of action brought by an injured party, and and NYSRPA versus Bruen is just such a case. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association brought action against Kevin Bruen, in his official capacity of Superintendent of the New York State Police alleging serious constitutional violations inherent in the New State Handgun Law.
Associate Justice, Clarence Thomas laid out the cause of action in the first two paragraphs of the case decision.
The State of New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed “pistol or revolver” if he can prove that “proper cause exists” for doing so. N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §400.00(2)(f ). An applicant satisfies the “proper cause” requirement only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257.
Petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are adult, law-abiding New York residents who both applied for unrestricted licenses to carry a handgun in public based on their generalized interest in self-defense. The State denied both of their applications for unrestricted licenses, allegedly because Koch and Nash failed to satisfy the “proper cause” requirement. Petitioners then sued respondents—state officials who oversee the processing of licensing applications—for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights by denying their unrestricted-license applications for failure to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense. The District Court dismissed petitioners’ complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts relied on the Second Circuit’s prior decision in Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, which had sustained New York’s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was “substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.” Id., at 96.
In Bruen, published on June 23, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “Proper Cause” standard, which had stood for decades as the core of the Handgun law that severely impacted a person’s right to armed self-defense in the public domain.
The Government had long utilized that standard to justify (really rationalize) severely restricting the number of concealed handgun carry licenses it issued to civilian citizens residing or working in New York. Application of “Proper Cause” severely handicapped an American citizen’s fundamental right to armed self-defense.
Forced to delete “Proper Cause” from the State’s Handgun Law, the Hochul Government crafted a mechanism to mask use of that standard under the rubric of “Good Moral Character,” which presently existed in the Handgun Law. The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of that.
So, the State utilized that seeming lapse by the Court, to imbue “Good Moral Character” with increased functional utility to serve as an adequate, if not ideal, substitute for the “Proper Cause” standard, thereby allowing the State to continue to constrain issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses, despite Bruen.
Yet, the State Government would still be compelled to issue many more concealed handgun carry licenses under the “Good Moral Character” standard than under the “Proper Cause” standard because the Government could not so easily arbitrarily and capriciously deny the issuance of concealed handgun carry licenses as they once had done through application of “Proper Cause.” So the Government had to devise a new strategy—one that would lessen the usefulness of a concealed handgun carry license for self-defense by restricting the places where a holder of a concealed handgun carry license could LAWFULLY CARRY and LAWFULLY USE a handgun for self-defense.
To that end the Government enacted a stringent set of “sensitive location” restrictions that precluded lawful carry and use of a handgun for self-defense purposes in those locations.
Instituting sensitive location restrictions, that had not previously existed, effectively transformed a licensee’s unrestricted concealed handgun carry license into a restricted concealed handgun carry license.
New York—and especially the City of New York—has become a veritable patchwork quilt of “PATCHES” consisting of LAWFUL CARRY (SAFE) and UNLAWFUL CARRY (UNSAFE) of hopscotch squares, that severely inhibit the exercise of a person’s right to protect him or herself against a dangerous predatory threat to life and safety that New York City, in particular, is inundated with.
The very thing that Justice Thomas, the author of the Bruen decision, had warned the New York Government not to do, Kathy Hochul and the Democratic Party majority Legislature in Albany machinated to do anyway, and did so in bold, blatant defiance to the Court’s stated admonishment to the Hochul Government.
The Government packaged these amendments under the label, “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA), a misleading and truly absurd name for an awful set of legal provisions, crafted to hide the incongruity and unconstitutionality of the Hochul Government’s actions, all directed to avoiding and overriding the Bruen rulings.
The State Senate in Albany passed the CCIA into Law on July 1, 2022, eight days after the High Court published the Bruen decision, and Kathy Hochul signed the Act into law the same day.
The law enacted would take effect on September 1, 2022, and the Government began enforcement of the CCIA on that day.
Petitioners filed their complaint, on July 11, 2022, challenging the CCIA, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, just ten days after Hochul signed the CCIA into law, on July 1, 2022. That signing occurred just eight days after the Supreme Court decision in Bruen.
The case, Antonyuk versus Bruen, 624 F. Supp. 3d 210 (N.D.N.Y. 2022), was the first case out of the gate to challenge the constitutionality of the amendments to the New York Handgun Law.
The Petitioners, Ivan Antonyuk, and three organizations, Gun Owners Of America, Inc.; Gun Owners Foundation; And Gun Owners Of America New York, Inc. alleged violations of their rights under the First, Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and also under 42 USCS § 1983 of the Civil Rights Act (Deprivation of Rights). On July 20, 2022, Petitioners filed their Motion for a Preliminary Injunction against enforcement of the CCIA—that was to take effect on September 1, 2022—until the Court had ruled on the merits of their case.
The Defendant, Kevin P. Bruen, in his official capacity as the Superintendent of the New York State Police, at that time, opposed the Complaint and Motion.
But, the District Court recognized the merits of the Petitioners cause of action and recited his arguments in a lengthy opinion. Yet, the Court dismissed the case without prejudice, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, because Petitioner organizations did not have standing to bring suit. They had brought action in their own right and they could not legally argue injury-in-fact, apart from such injury suffered by their members whom they did not name.
However, since the District Court dismissed the case “without prejudice,” against the organizations only, this meant that Ivan Antonyuk, in his individual capacity, was the lone Petitioner who had standing to sue and could refile his complaint against the Government.
Still, the Court could not ethically tell Ivan Antonyuk to refile the case, but, seemingly the Court, subtly, encouraged him to do so, suggesting that, if he were to do so, the Court would likely grant a motion for preliminary injunction. The Court made that plain in its lengthy opinion.
The granting of preliminary injunction is grounded in part on the party filing the motion presenting a strong argument supporting the inference that the movant will prevail on the merits once the case proceeds to trial.
Hochul didn’t bother to consider the import of the Court’s ruling. She took the dismissal of the case as a win, not bothering to inform the Press or the Public that a world of difference exists, in law, between the court’s dismissal of a case “with prejudice” and the court’s dismissal of a case “without prejudice,” and that such a dismissal of a case without prejudice for lack of standing is oft a technical error, easily corrected through the refiling of a case with the same set of facts and law but with the proper parties as plaintiffs.
Hochul evidently thought she could play up this win as politically advantageous to her Administration, although only temporarily, despite the legal marsh her Government was and is stuck in. But, “the optics” played well, in the Press, at least for a time. The idea she sought to convey is that the New York courts were all on her side. Well, some of them were and are, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. But, it would be a while before a case would wind up before the Federal Appellata Court.
Hochul must have known the Petitioner, Ivan Antonyuk, would refile the case, and he did so. Her staff attorneys would likely have told her that challenges to the CCIA were not going away. And, Ivan Antonyuk did refile his case.
The courts would henceforth refer to the new case as Antonyuk II.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, did grant the Petitioners their Motion for Preliminary Injunction, as they had every reason to expect.
The Government opposed the granting of the motion. That, too, was expected.
Eventually, the Antonyuk case wended its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where the Second Circuit merged it with a few other similar cases, filed in other New York District Courts.
The Second Circuit’s first major decision came down on December 8, 2023. The case is captioned Antonyuk versus Chiumento, 89 F.4th 271 (2nd Cir. 2023).
True to form the Second Circuit sided with the Government. It vacated the stay of enforcement of the CCIA in place after the U.S. District Court granted the Antonyuk Petitioners’ motion for preliminary injunction. The Government was once again free to enforce its “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.”
Petitioners thereupon appealed the adverse decision to the U.S. Supreme Court through their Petition for Writ of Certiorari. What happened?
The High Court DID GRANT the Petitioners FIRST WRIT but delayed its review of the case on the merits, seemingly oddly, by request of the Antonyuk Petitioners themselves.
Petitioners had made a strong case for review of their case in 2024, but in the last paragraph of their Brief, they asserted the possible application of another case that the Petitioners said might have an impact on Antonyuk. That case is United States versus Rahimi. The Petitioners therefore requested the Court to delay its review of Antonyuk, pending the possible application of Rahimi, once the Court decided that case.
Back in February 2024, the Court had not yet completed its review of Rahimi, or, otherwise, the Justices had not finalized their drafts and were not prepared at that point to publish their decision. But is Rahimi applicable to Bruen and to Antonyuk? Petitioners had a good reason for believing so, and their reason for asking the Court to delay review goes to an analysis of the test of “Historical Tradition” that replaced “interest balancing.”
This was first discussed and dealt with in Heller and analyzed at length in Bruen. Rahimi dealt with “Historical Tradition” if only tangentially. But Rahimi would be helpful to resolution of Antonyuk if the Court could tie up the loose strands in the methodology of “Historical Tradition” that were left in Bruen.
Even so, the delay gave the Roberts Court some respite.
Both the Chief Justice and the Liberal Wing of the Court must have been relieved. They could continue to delay a reckoning on Antonyuk. That certainly wouldn’t displease Governor Hochul and the Democrat Party Legislators in Albany. If the Government could enforce the CCIA unimpeded, that would be enough.
In its Order issued on July 2, 2024, the High Court said it is remanding the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In its remand to the Second Circuit Appellate Court, the U.S. Supreme Court said,
On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Petition for writ of certiorari granted. Judgment vacated, and case remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for further consideration in light of United States v. Rahimi, 602 U. S. ___, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 2714 (2024).
On June 21, 2024, the Court decided Rahimi. The citation is now complete: United States versus Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680; 144 S. Ct. 1889 (2024).
The Second Circuit had to act. Still, the Second Circuit Court did not issue its decision until late October 2024, over three months from the date the U.S. Supreme Court remanded Antonyuk to its jurisdiction.
The Appellate Court stated, not surprisingly, that, having considered the High Court’s decision in Rahimi, it stands by its earlier decision. It was that adverse decision that led Petitioners’ to file their request for review to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Second Circuit Court once again vacated most of the lower District Court’s granting of Petitioners’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction that had stayed enforcement of the core of Hochul’s CCIA.
The case citation is Antonyuk versus James, 120 F.4th 941 (2nd Cir. 2024), decided on October 24, 2024.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals then remanded the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, ordering the lower Court to review the case anew in light of the Second Circuit’s latest findings.
This is the same District Court that took up Petitioners’ FIRST CHALLENGE to Governor Hochul’s amendments to the State’s Handgun Law. And that case was, on information and belief, the first case anywhere, directly challenging the constitutionality of New York’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.”
We will provide a more detailed timeline of the litigation and provide more in depth analysis of the cases and the stakes involved in an upcoming essay on our website.
Antonyuk has great significance to the sanctity of the Second Amendment because no other Second Amendment case to date has such a direct impact on Bruen. A final resolution of Antonyuk is now at hand, and the U.S. Supreme Court must not squander this opportunity.
After the Second Circuit reiterated its conclusion that the core of Hochul’s amendments to the State’s handgun law are legally and constitutionally sound and therefore do not offend Bruen, and, after the Court remanded the case back down to the same Court that dealt with the case over two and half years earlier—which bought more time for the New York Government and for the Second Circuit Court—the Antonyuk Petitioners were not going to continue to allow the Government or the New York Courts to play any more games with time, constantly delaying a final reckoning on the constitutionality of the CCIA and, thence, on the legality of continued State enforcement of the CCIA.
Petitioners informed the U.S. District Court that they intended to file an immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court——their SECOND WRIT OF CERTIORARI. They would not bother filing a request to the Second Circuit for reconsideration of the Court’s adverse decision. That would be a colossal waste of time, effort and money. And further litigation at the District Court would also be a waste of both time and valuable resources.
The District Court—that had granted Petitioners’ motion for Preliminary Injunction back in 2022, only to have the U.S. Court of Appeals stay execution of the Injunction—agreed to continue its own stay of the original case, pending the filing of the Writ.
That original case (with proper party plaintiffs), Antonyuk II, was, at the time, formally captioned Antonyuk versus Hochul.
The District Court of New York entered its stay by “Text Order,” dated December 2, 2024.
Petitioners then were free to file their second Writ of Certiorari, and, on January 22, 2025, they did so. The document is 2025 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 219 (No. 2475 January 22, 2025).
This second appeal includes much of the argument presented in their first Writ to the High Court.
The Petitioners arguments are as sound now, both legally and logically, as they were back in 2024.
Petitioners reiterated the questions for review and argument in support of granting the Writ but now point to the Rahimi case as critical in explaining a definitive temporal locus to be employed in factoring in the test of “Historical Tradition” in judging the constitutionality of state actions impacting the sacred right of the people to armed self-defense.
This is why, it has become apparent, that, in Petitioners’ FIRST Petition for Writ of Certiorari, they decided to request a remand of the case rather than immediate review of Antonyuk, on the merits, even though a remand to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, would serve to delay final resolution of the case yet again. They felt awaiting a Rahimi decision, if favorable, would be worth the delay. The case has proved beneficial to Petitioner’s cause of action apropos of the temporal element of “Historical Tradition” that courts must use when reviewing State action impacting the core of the Second Amendment. This is a crucial part of Petitioners’ argument for striking down the CCIA. The issue of the temporal point at which “Historical Tradition” should frame court review of the constitutionality of a State’s action impacting the core of the Second Amendment is decisive of a reviewing court’s determination of constitutionality of that State action. That is one reason the Antonyuk Petitioners had sought delay in review of their case.
Moreover, as the Supreme Court had granted the Petitioners’ FIRST WRIT—albeit resulting in a remand of the case to the Second Circuit and further delay of final resolution—still this granting of the first Writ means the High Court is well-aware of and sensitive to the issues and arguments of the Petitioners and and is amenable to granting the SECOND WRIT, and is ready to spring into action with an expeditious ruling, consistent with Bruen and, therefore, beneficial to the Antonyuk Petitioners.
TIME MAY WELL HAVE BEEN ON THE SIDE OF THE NEW YORK HOCHUL GOVERNMENT SINCE ENFORCEMENT OF THE CCIA HAS CONTINUED FOR WELL OVER TWO YEARS. BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR NEW YORK. AN ULTIMATE RESOLUTION OF THE CASE IS, WE BELIEVE, AT HAND.
These are the opening remarks and questions for review as presented in the Antonyuk Petitioners’ SECOND PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI:
Moments after this Court issued N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), striking down New York's discretionary firearms licensing regime, state politicians decried the decision as "reprehensible," vowing to resist the "insanity" of "gun culture" that "possessed . . . the Supreme Court." Rather than following Bruen, New York enacted a "Concealed Carry Improvement Act" that makes it more difficult to bear arms than before Bruen was decided.
A panel of the Second Circuit upheld much of this law in an opinion this Court vacated in light of United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). But on remand, the panel doubled down, reissuing a nearly identical opinion and dismissing Rahimi as having "little direct bearing on our conclusions." Relying almost entirely on a few late-19th-century outlier laws rather than Founding-era practice, the panel again affirmed New York's requirement of "good moral character" as a precondition to public carry, along with most of its gun bans in all manner of nonsensitive public places. These holdings clearly contravene Bruen's rejection of discretionary "suitability" assessments and warning not to declare all of Manhattan a "sensitive place." The questions presented are:
1. Whether the proper historical time period for ascertaining the Second Amendment's original meaning as applied to the states is 1791, rather than 1868; and2. Whether "the people" must convince government officials of their "good moral character" before exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The Antonyuk Petitioners then proceed to lay out the reasons for the High Court’s granting of their Petition for review of their case.
REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION
THIS CASE PRESENTS AN EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION WHOSE ANSWER WILL AFFECT MANY SECOND AMENDMENT CASES.
Bruen and Rahimi Left Unresolved the Appropriate Temporal Focal Point for Second Amendment Analysis.
Although acknowledging "an ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding" when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, or when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, Bruen ultimately left the question unresolved "because . . . the public understanding . . . in both 1791 and 1868 was . . . the same. . . . " . Yet Justice Barrett anticipated that this question "might make a difference in another case," explaining that "1791 is the benchmark" and "Reconstruction-era history" alone is "simply too late" and "too little." Id. at 82 (Barrett, J., concurring). Cautioning the lower courts, Justice Barrett rejected any "freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century. . . .” Id. at 83.
But following Bruen, the lower courts have failed to coalesce on this temporal question and, like Bruen, Rahimi did not "resolv[e] the dispute." Rahimi at 692 n.1. And like Justice Barrett in Bruen, Justice Jackson called the temporal question an "[e]xtremely pertinent inquir[y]" which "await[s] resolution. . . ." Id. at 746 n.4 (Jackson, J., concurring). Indeed, there is a multi-way circuit split on the question, and the district courts are in disarray, with divergent approaches continuing to multiply as to which historical sources to use.
This case presents an excellent vehicle for this Court to resolve the debate between 1791 and 1868, which presents at all stages of litigation. Below, the panel relied – almost exclusively – on historical laws enacted well after the Second Amendment's ratification, with the earliest being nearly half a century after the Founding. Strikingly, Bruen considered and rejected each of the three earlier purported analogues the panel did reference. Thus, the panel's singular focus on mid-to-late 19th-century sources was outcome-determinative in this case because, "apart from a handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions" (Bruen at 38), no historical tradition exists to justify the CCIA. Resolution of the temporal question not only will correct the panel's errors below, but also will provide critical guidance to innumerable lower courts analyzing similar challenges.
This Court's Second Amendment Decisions Confirm 1791 Is the Proper Focal Point.
Note: the Antonyuk Petitioners make plain that the “historical tradition” test of Bruen is resolved in Rahimi—
COURTS SHOULD INVOKE 1791—THE DATE OF RATIFICATION OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS—AS THE APPROPRIATE, DEFINITIVE TEMPORAL ARBITER FOR COURT REVIEW OF AND TESTING OF THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATE OR FEDERAL ACTS THAT IMPACT THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
In other words, reviewing courts should defer to the text of the Second Amendment itself for determining whether government action infringes the core of the Second Amendment.
IT IS TIME TO STOP THIS RIDICULOUS MERRY-GO-ROUND. THE U.S. SUPREME COURT MUST NOT ALLOW LOWER COURTS TO PLAY THEIR GAME OF DELAY AND APPEASEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS THAT CONTINUE TO DEFY U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS THEY DON’T LIKE AND THAT ARE CONTRARY TO THEIR AIMS AND AGENDA. THEY WANT THIS THIRD BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT TO BE A RUBBER-STAMP FOR THEM, NOT AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH THAT THWARTS THEIR WILL. THAT MUST NOT BE!
ONE OF THE TOP OBJECTIVES OF THESE RUTHLESS AND DESTRUCTIVE FORCES IS THE ELIMINATION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT. THEY ATTACK ALL ATTEMPTS BY CITIZENS TO STRENGTHEN IT.
TREACHEROUS FORCES OPPOSE AN ARMED CITIZENRY WHICH EXISTS TO SECURE BOTH LIFE AND LIBERTY. THESE FORCES SEE THE ARMED CITIZENRY AS A COUNTER-FORCE THAT WOULD PREVENT A STRONG CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EXERTING CONTROL OVER THE PEOPLE. THEY CANNOT ABIDE THIS.
BUT, WITH BIDEN OUT OF OFFICE AND TRUMP IN OFFICE, THEY SEE THEIR WELL-ENGINEERED PLANS TO TRANSFORM OUR COUNTRY INTO A DESPOTIC STATE QUICKLY UNRAVELING. THEY ARE ENRAGED AND DISTRAUGHT BY RECENT EVENTS.
THE ARMED CITIZENRY IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE DETERRENT TO THE REALIZATION OF THEIR OBJECTIVES—INSTITUTION OF TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENT. THE FORCES THAT SEEK TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY KNOW THAT THE ARMED CITIZENRY WAS AND REMAINS THE BEST DETERRENT TO TYRANNY.
THIS IS WHY THESE FORCES THAT CRUSH ARE OBSESSED WITH DESTROYING THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND THE ARMED AMERICAN CITIZENRY.
IF THESE FORCES ARE SUCCESSFUL IN THEIR TREACHEROUS ENDEAVORS, THEY CAN EASILY SUBJUGATE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, CONTROLLING THEIR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS.
LET US NOT BE DISTRACTED FROM THE SALIENT CRISIS AT HAND. IT IS FRONT AND CENTER AND IT IS DIRE.
We now await the U.S. Supreme Court decision whether to grant or deny the Writ once they return from recess.
The U.S. Supreme Court must take up this case. If it fails to do so, that means the New York Hochul Government has won. And further weakening of a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms in New York will continue to be eroded until nothing is left of the right.
As important as the pending Snope case is (which the U.S. Supreme Court continues to delay voting to grant review or not), the ANTONYUK case is, without doubt, THE MOST IMPORTANT SECOND AMENDMENT CASE TO COME BEFORE THE COURT SINCE BRUEN BECAUSE IT DIRECTLY IMPACTS BRUEN IN A WAY THAT NO OTHER PENDING CASE DOES. THE NEW YORK STATE CCIA IS BOTH A DIRECT RESPONSE TO BRUEN AND OPERATES IN OPEN AND BLATANT DEFIANCE OF IT.
If the U.S. Supreme Court does not take up any other Second Amendment case, this term, it must take up Antonyuk.
If the Court does review this case, IT MUST STRIKE DOWN the guts of New York’s amendments to its Handgun Law. If it rules in favor of the New York Government, then the Court slits its own throat by undermining its own decision in Bruen, and it opens the Country up to Tyranny. BRUEN WOULD BE FUNCTIONALLY DEAD AS WOULD THE SECOND AMENDMENT, FREEDOM, AND LIBERTY.
Nor can the Court take a pass on this case. For the result is the same.
The New York Government has treated THE BRUEN RULINGS as garbage and has treated the Court, the THIRD BRANCH OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, as a Branch without credible authority.
If New York can arrogantly, defiantly violate the Bruen rulings, which were, after all, directed, first and foremost at New York, then any other jurisdiction will feel confident it may do the same, perceiving it has tacit “license” to do so. The Bruen rulings will cease to have meaning and significance.
Anti-Second Amendment states would then see the Court in the same vein as the world has perceived the demented, dementia-riddled Joe Biden, and his Administration—as effete, ineffectual, frightened, and imbecilic little creatures, to be taken advantage of or simply ignored.
Anti-Second Amendment states and local jurisdictions would be constantly emboldened to continue violating the citizen’s fundamental right to armed self-defense, and they would act aggressively—flagrantly violating the law and the Constitution.
In time, the right to armed self-defense in the public domain and even in the home would be second-guessed. That would result in a deleterious domino effect. Heller and McDonald, will in turn be weakened. For, each case depends on and clarifies points of each of the others. They are all connected.
We hope and pray that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have as much sway over Chief Justice Roberts as had the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia.
They must impress on Chief Justice Roberts, and on the other ostensibly Conservative-wing Justices, the imperative need to take up Antonyuk this term and to strike down New York’s ridiculous and dangerous Handgun Law. And they must hold that the date of ratification of the Bill of Rights, in 1791, is the date on which the methodological test of “Historical Tradition” in Second Amendment cases must rest.
Antonyuk will thereupon become THE FOURTH LANDMARK SECOND AMENDMENT CASE. This would be a fitting gift to the American people in 2025, and a feather in the cap of President Trump.
President Trump will thus be remembered as the leader who reclaimed, for the American people, their Nation’s ancestral history, heritage, culture, and moral stature. He will also be remembered as the leader who restored the Nation to its former grandeur. May this all come to pass!
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