THE U.S. SUPREME COURT CANNOT PERMIT NEW YORK TO MISUSE ITS POLICE POWERS TO FRUSTRATE EXERCISE OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE.
Antonyuk vs. James is the most important Second Amendment case since the 2022 case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen. Yet, after SCOTUS denied review of Antonyuk— without direction and instruction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, wherefrom the appeal was taken—the case languishes in a perpetual limbo. Where in fact is it?
The case should be in the hands of the Second Circuit. If so, what is the Court doing with it? Anything? Nothing? What are the Petitioners doing about it? Anything? Nothing? Have the Courts and Petitioners washed their hands of the most important Second Amendment case to come to the attention of New York’s federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court since the 2022 Bruen case?
What has transpired with this case during the last three months?
On April 7, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Antonyuk Writ of Certiorari. The Court denied it without comment. The case citation is Antonyuk vs. James, 127 F.4th 941 (2nd Cir. 2024), cert. den. (No. 24-795) LEXIS 1384, 221 L. Ed. 2d 646 (April 7, 2025).
AQ first reported this on May 8, 2025, in our article titled “The Roberts’ Court Has Gone Rogue: Failure to Grant Review in Antonyuk vs. James Defies Law and Logic, Undermining Both The U.S. Constitution and the Court’s Credibility.”
Ammoland Shooting Sports News posted a summary of that May 8 article, on May 14, 2025, under the title, “Antonyuk Deserved More: The Court’s Denial Isn’t Just a Letdown —It’s A Warning.”
In the absence of a strenuous dissent from either one or both of the two senior Associate Justices, Clarence Thomas, or Samuel Alito, the casual observer would likely infer, albeit erroneously, that the case must have little of significance for any of the Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.
If the public perceived it that way—assuming the public considered the Antonyuk case at all—several Associate Justices, including the Chief Justice, would view that positively, even while aware that review of and favorable decision in the case, one favorable to the Petitioners, is crucial to maintaining the potency, ascendancy and the precedential value of Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, the three previous landmark Second Amendment cases.
And the legacy Press has, for the most part, also remained silent, suggesting that the case is of no consequence to Second Amendment jurisprudence.
Such news accounts and commentaries that did mention the Antonyuk case had little of substance to say concerning it, making only cursory note of it. We know, we checked.
Scanning two major leftist legacy newspapers, The New York Times, and The Washington Post (“WAPO”), we could not find mention of the case let alone extensive discussion of it. But these publishers, and the reporters, editorialists and editors, must have been exuberant over the denial of certiorari.
Antonyuk vs. James isn’t just a noteworthy Second Amendment case, it is of paramount importance to the sanctity of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Bruen arose as a challenge to the legality of and constitutionality of New York’s century old Handgun Law, where the Government of New York not only interposed itself between the fundamental, unalienable, eternal natural law right to armed self-defense codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights and the peoples’ exercise of that Right, but laid claim to a false idea that informs all that the State does to illegally, unconstitutionally constrain exercise of the right. The State has presumed, wrongly, that it lawfully exercises its sovereign “police power” to regulate, i.e., strangle, exercise of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms.
And the legacy Press is fine with this.
The abject failure of SCOTUS to constrain New York’s abuse of a sacred and inviolate right, permitting a rogue State to defiantly run roughshod over the Court’s own rulings against State abuse of its frightening, terrible “POLICE POWER” to maintain CONTROL over the citizenry demonstrates the inherent frailty of the Roberts’ Court and an unethical Press that supports the Court’s abject failure to rein in unconstitutional, unconscionable actions of a State Government that sinks into depravity.
The Press avidly supports a State that abuses its powers to deny the citizenry’s exercise of a fundamental, unalienable natural law right to armed self-defense, thereby inviting and tacitly supporting Government Tyranny. For the slow, incremental, inexorable accretion of power is an intrinsic characteristic of and feature of Government—ALL Government. Domination of and control of a population is the ultimate end-goal of Government.
There exists only one countervailing force to SUPPRESS this TENDENCY of A STATE to inexorably GROW in size and EXPAND its POWER EXPONENTIALLY—THE WELL-ARMED CITIZENRY.
There are three major issues attendant to our examination of the Court’s failure to take up the Antonyuk case:
The Vital Importance Of This Case To The Preservation Of The Second Amendment
The Lack Of A Sound Reason For The Court’s Denial Of The Petitioners’ Writ Of Certiorari
The New York Government’s Misuse Of Its Police Power To Illegally Interfere With The Citizenry’s Exercise Of Its Fundamental Right To Armed Self-Defense
We will take up the issue of State “Police Power” first, as little is said about it, and we find that the issue of a State’s misuse of its police power is the foundation of all the problems proceeding from New York’s illegal handgun law.
Exercise Of State Police Power Versus Exercise Of The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms
We begin with this: A State Government—ANY State Government—cannot lawfully regulate the peoples’ exercise of a right that preexists Government unless the State itself has the lawful authority to do so. Note: we are not here denying a State has inordinate power to constrain or deny exercise of the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms. The same is true of the Federal Government.
But, if a State Government and the Federal Government had sufficient power, today, to take control over civilian citizenship arms and ammunition, this would have occurred. They cannot do this. Many States would not want to do this as they self-regulate.
This could change if a new government took control of those states. Other States, such as New York have, since their inception, sought to control their population. This could also occur if another rogue Administration, like the Biden Administration, were to take over the Executive Branch of Government. And that is possible, as a substantial portion of the Electorate is predisposed or conditioned to welcome the destruction of the Republic.
The Antonyuk case serves as a useful focal point for getting a handle on the tension here between the natural tendency of government to exert maximum control over its populace, necessitating confiscation of firearms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a populace (or a sizable percentage of it) resisting that Government control over their firearms and ammunition.
A Government suspicious of the people will attempt to gain control over any mechanism by which the people can thwart or overthrow a despotic, tyrannical government.
The U.S. Government has an incomparable arsenal at its disposal, comprising a massive military, intelligence apparatus, and federal police forces.
The States also have a formidable power to use against the population under its purview, through which they constrain the portion of resident citizenry of their States. The use of its POLICE POWER.
And that raises the question: “Where does the Police Power of a State derive?
The police power of a state is not derived from the Federal Constitution but exists independently as part of the state's inherent sovereignty.
This power was never surrendered to the federal government when the Constitution was ratified. House v. Mayes, 219 U.S. 270 (1911)
The police power is defined as the power to protect life, liberty and property, to conserve the public health and good order, which always belonged to the states, and was not surrendered to the general government, or directly restrained by the constitution. See, Arkansas v. Kansas & Texas Coal Co., 183 U.S. 185, Plumley v. Massachusetts, 155 U.S. 461.
But what happens if a State doesn’t protect life, liberty and property, and fails to conserve the public health or provide for public order (PUBLIC SAFETY)?
Doesn’t the need for PERSONAL SAFETY, which is not the duty or obligation of the State, become that much more important? How better for the citizen to provide for his PERSONAL SAFETY, than through wielding a firearm? This points to a curious paradox of “Blue” States, such as New York.
The Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul argues ad nauseum that it is the obligation of the State to provide “PUBLIC SAFETY.” True, and we don’t quarrel with that pronouncement, that we hear incessantly.
But it is also true that Americans have the right to provide for their own “PERSONAL SAFETY.” Bruen makes that point plain. And that right doesn’t rest within the confines of one’s home. It continues in the public domain. That is a central holding of the case.
One’s right to armed self-defense goes with the person, wherever that person goes, so, too, his right to armed self-defense against threats to life and well-being goes with him.
The right to armed self-defense doesn’t stop at the doorstep of a person’s house. An American has the natural law right to armed self-defense while in the public domain no less than when at home. But, it is that contention—a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruen—that enrages Governor Hochul, and the officials in her Administration, and Democrat law-makers in Albany. They contend, without proof, that an armed citizenry makes her job tougher. How so? She never explains. Meanwhile she allows violent predators to roam freely about the City and State, free to prey on innocent lives.
Hochul has done nothing to protect New Yorkers from random and horrific acts of violence—especially in New York City.
Law-abiding Americans who reside or work in the City are in constant danger of violent assaults. Random acts of violence go unchecked. Hochul has done nothing except complain about law-abiding Americans carrying handguns in public to protect themselves from the very threats Hochul doesn’t do anything to curtail.
The Criminal Justice System is ineffectual, police are understaffed, and police policies prevent officers from effectively protecting the community at large. Indeed, they, too, are regularly assaulted by illegal alien gangs, and lunatics. Hochul’s indifference to this is not lost on the psychopaths who prey on innocent New Yorkers, with abandon.
Hochul can’t have it both ways. If she abhors the idea of citizens carrying handguns for their own protection, then she must provide effective police protection for the public. If the community is safe from incessant random acts of extreme violence, then members of that community will be less inclined to carry a handgun, perceiving no need for one. But the communities are not safe from random acts of violence, hence the need of New Yorkers to arm themselves.
Moreover, there is a dangerous myth surrounding police obligations that most Americans in New York and in cities around the Country aren’t aware of, and it is one that public officials, including Hochul don’t bother to mention. It is this——
Although Police departments do have an obligation to protect their respective communities, that obligation doesn’t extend to individual members of a community. The police do not have any duty to ensure the safety of each member of a community. That isn’t the obligation of the Government.
Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, police departments and police officers are indemnified against damage, or loss, or legal liability for the failure to protect an individual who has suffered property loss or physical harm.
This means that a person who is the victim of a violent assault, does not have legal claim against the police—something that victims learn after the fact. In the case of death due to a predatory attack against an innocent member of a community, the family of the deceased will not be able to collect damages in a wrongful death action against the police or other governmental entity.
The Arbalest Quarrel published three comprehensive articles on the issue of “sovereign immunity,” apropos of the police, several years ago. They include——
“CAN WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, RELY ON THE POLICE TO PROTECT US?”, posted on October 25, 2019”;
“CAN WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, RELY ON THE POLICE TO PROTECT US? A REPRISE OF OUR EARLIER [October 25, 2019] Article” (adding extensive new material to the original article), posted on November 21, 2019); and,
“THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROTECT YOU! YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF!,” posted on July 31, 2020;
Ammoland Shooting Sports News reposted a condensed version of these articles, formatted for their website.
Our October 25, 2019 article, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us?,”, was posted on Ammoland, on November 26, 2019.
Our November 21, 2019 article, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us?, A Reprise of Our Earlier [October 25, 2019] Article”, was posted on Ammoland under the title, “Police Have No Duty To Secure The Life Of Americans From Threat Of Physical Harm”, on November 27, 2019; and
Our July 31, 2020 article, “The Government Cannot Protect You! You Must Protect Yourself!,” was posted on Ammoland, on August 6, 2020.
Given the fact of incessant random acts of extreme violence done to innocent people, on a daily basis, as they are simply trying to go about their lives unmolested by rampaging hordes of psychopaths and lunatics that freely roam the City looking for prey, it stretches credulity that the Hochul Government endorses a lax criminal justice and handcuffs the police, leaving the public in a constant vulnerable condition, but detests the idea of armed civilian citizens protecting themselves. But that is reality in New York City.
Governor Hochul has made it difficult for those citizens—residing or working in the City—who simply wish to defend their life and well-being with the best means available, a handgun. Carrying a handgun is both a fundamental, unalienable right, and an outright imperative when one resides in a concrete jungle.
Hochul plainly denies the notion of “ARMED PERSONAL SAFETY” which she won’t dare mention, invariably framing the conversation of “safety” around the notion of “PUBLIC SAFETY”——strongly suggesting that “SAFETY” is solely a GOVERNMENT ENDEAVOR and a GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY.
But ensuring “PUBLIC SAFETY,” which goes to the idea of ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of the community—which, Hochul does a very poor job in providing—has, in any event, nothing to do with ENSURING and SECURING THE HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING of each particular member of THE COMMUNITY.
The “POLICE POWER” OF A STATE is THE FOUNDATIONAL BASE of its POWER and and GOVERNING AUTHORITY.
The Supreme Court has recognized the police power was reserved to the states. This general power of governing is possessed by the states and not by the federal government. Nat'l Fed'n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012).
Despite the broad nature of state police powers, those powers are not unlimited.
The Supreme Court has established that——
"the police power of a State, while not susceptible of definition with circumstantial precision, must be exercised within a limited ambit and is subordinate to constitutional limitations." Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. State Highway Com., 294 U.S. 613 (1935) [emphasis our own]. THOSE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS INCLUDE, IN PRINCIPAL PART, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS IN THEIR PERSONAL DEFENSE AGAINST PREDATORY MAN, AND TO MAINTAIN ARMS AGAINST THE THREAT OF A PREDATORY GOVERNMENT.
The Court has further clarified that "as the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution or statutes of the States to the contrary notwithstanding, a statute of a State, even when avowedly enacted in the exercise of its police powers, must yield to that law." Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.S. 540 (1902) [emphasis our own] This passage means that fundamental, unalienable rights override a state’s exercise of its police powers if they infringe a citizen’s exercise of a fundamental, unalienable right.
Thus, Extrapolating From These U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, A Hierarchy Exists In Our Legal Jurisprudence Where Our Natural Law Rights Codified In Our Nation’s Bill Of Rights Take Precedence Over State Police Powers When The Two Come Into Conflict.
The Police Powers Of The States Preexist The U.S. Constitution, Just As The Natural Law Rights Of The People Preexist The U.S. Constitution.
However, The Police Powers Of The State Come Into Existence With The Emergence Of The State——An Artificial Gpvernmental Construct, To Which Those Police Powers Attach.
Hence, The Police Powers Of A State Are Not Eternal, Unlike Natural Law Rights Of The People, Which Are Eternal, Not Transitory, i.e., they are Without A Beginning Or An End. The most that can be said of the States is that their sovereignty precedes the sovereignty of the Federal Government, and that fact is recognized in the United States Constitution which only came into existence because the States ratified it, ceding some but not all sovereign authority to the new Federal Government.
The Federal Government exercises powers as set forth in the Articles of the Constitution. All other powers reside in the states or the people. This is recognition of the concept of Federalism that undergirds the Constitution.
The Federal Government exercises sovereignty, and the States exercise sovereignty. However, above both rests the sovereignty of the American people who retain supreme sovereignty over the Federal Government and the States. This is exemplified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
The Predominace And Preeminence Of The Natural Law Right To Armed Self-Defense Over The Police Powers Of The State Stem From Both Its Eternal Nature, Grounded On And Inextricably Bound To The Natural Law Right Of Self-Preservation And On An Essential Constitutional Feature, Trait, Character, Or Attribute)——Namely, As A Right Cemented In The Bill Of Rights Of The U.S. Constitution.
Therefore, When A State’s Police Powers Collide And Clash With The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms, Such State Law That Is Grounded On A State’s Police Powers Must Be Struck Down As Illegal And Unconstitutional—In Deference To The Preeminence Of The Preexisting And Predominant Right To Armed Self-Defense.
The tension between a state’s police powers and the Natural Law Right to Keep and Bear Arms, codified in the Second Amendment, derives from the different origins of these legal concepts.
State police powers predate the Constitution and were reserved to the states, not surrendered to the federal government. House v. Mayes, 219 U.S. 270 (1911).
These powers enable states to legislate for public health, safety, and welfare. Arkansas v. Kansas & Texas Coal Co., 183 U.S. 185 (1901).
The Second Amendment, however, is part of the Constitution, which is "the supreme law of the land." Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.S. 540 (1902)
WHEN STATE POLICE POWERS AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS COME INTO CONFLICT, THE SUPREME COURT HAS ESTABLISHED A CLEAR HIERARCHY: CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS PREVAIL. THE COURT HAS EXPLICITLY STATED THAT——
“no right granted or secured by the constitution of the united states can be impaired or destroyed by a state enactment, whatever may be the source from which the power to pass such enactment may have been derived.” Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.S. 540 (1902)
This principle applies to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, which cannot be impaired by state regulations enacted under police powers.
This raises a salient and perennial question—one that concerns firearms licensing—namely:
Is State Firearms Licensing Constitutional?
IMPORTANT NOTE: The discussion below is based on early Twentieth Century Law that considers the tension between application of state police powers contra exercise of the right to keep and bear arms from the standpoint of “interest balancing”—that reviewing courts utilized to determine the constitutionality of state action prior to the Heller case.
The Heller case abolished INTEREST BALANCING in favor of “HISTORICAL TRADITION” analysis that reviewing courts must henceforth use when determining the constitutionality of a state action that impacts exercise of the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment. Nonetheless—
The tension existent between THE POLICE POWERS of a State and the NATURAL LAW RIGHT OF TO ARMED SELF-DEFENSE has always existed, compounded by State adoption of firearms licensing, which States utilized in a deceitful attempt to circumvent the inherent supremacy of the natural law right (codified in the Second Amendment) over illegal, intrusive application of State Police Power to rein in exercise of the right to armed self-defense.
Licensing requirements for firearms represent an exercise of state police powers aimed at protecting public safety.
However, when such requirements effectively burden or restrict the exercise of Second Amendment rights, they create a tension with the constitutional protection of those rights, then one must give way to the other. Ninety years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that when operation of a State’s POLICE POWERS infringe the NATURAL LAW RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, it is the POLICE POWERS of the STATE that must accede to the superior
The Supreme Court has established that state police powers "must be exercised within a limited ambit AND IS SUBORDINATE TO CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS." Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. State Highway Com., 294 U.S. 613 (1935). [Uppercase and Emphasis our own]
The Court has further clarified that under the police power, "there is no unrestricted authority to accomplish whatever the public may presently desire." Id. Instead, the police power permits reasonable regulation of rights and property in particulars essential to the preservation of the community from injury. Id. But, suppose the State isn’t protecting the community from injury and, in fact, is, through its ineptitude or reckless indifference to the community is causing injury to that community and its residents. What then? Can the State legally prevent the public from taking responsibility for its own protection through use of the most effective means available—a firearm? The answer is a resounding, “no.” Yet many jurisdictions are doing little to nothing to perform their obligation, secure a community’s PUBLIC SAFETY, and simultaneously frustrate the members of the public from taking action to provide for their own PERSONAL SAFETY. This isn’t a hypothetical matter. This is the situation in New York under the Hochul Government. And the U.S. Supreme Court has done nothing to prevent the State from running roughshod over its residents.
The key question in New York is, today, the same as it was when the Court dealt a blow to New York’s indifference to the plight of New Yorkers when the Court came down with the Bruen decision in late June 2022. Nothing has changed. If anything, matters have gotten worse. Criminals, lunatics, and illegal alien gangs run amok and the innocent New Yorkers still have to run through hoops to obtain a New York concealed handgun carry license. And, if they eventually secure one, they find their use of a handgun for self-defense is constrained by a myriad of “SENSITIVE PLACE” restrictions, preventing lawful use of a handgun for self-defense.
If licensing schemes effectively prevent or significantly hinder law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights, they must be deemed unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's framework laid down in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. And the Court should have shut the door on the reprehensible Hochul Government by granting review of Antonyuk. The Roberts’ Court unconscionably denied review of the case by taking a another and even closer look at New York’s handgun licensing regime.
Whether licensing requirements create a logical contradiction with the fundamental nature of the Second Amendment right turns on how we understand the relationship between rights and privileges. This isn’t difficult to resolve. For, if the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is to be treated as the fundamental right that it is, a right predating the Constitution, then any State that requires a license as a condition precedent to exercising the right—is blatantly, not surrepticiously, converting a fundamental right into a privilege granted by the state, thereby contradicting the fundamental nature of the right.
The Supreme Court has established well over one hundred years ago that state enactments are not permitted to impair, let alone destroy, constitutionally protected rights.
New York’s amendments to its Handgun Law do just that. In some ways the amendments are worse than under the old system utilizing “PROPER CAUSE.”
If licensing requirements effectively transform a fundamental right into a state-granted privilege, those licensing requirements run counter and unconstitutionally infringe exercise of the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms. State licensing of firearms is the crux of the problem raised by all State regulation of firearms that utilizes a “State Licensing Framework.” And this is the crux of a problem that the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged but refused to rule on in Heller since the Court plainly said that the issue concerning the legality of State licensing of firearms, rested outside the scope of the issues of the Heller case. Still, the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion in Heller, obviously realized that the matter of firearms licensing—arising or materializing from operation of a State’s Police Powers must someday be tackled by the Court in a comprehensive and unequivocal fashion, and not left as in a slipshod condition. Given, deliberate transgressions by rogue States to misuse Government firearms licensing to surmount the emphatic fundamental, unalienable right of the people to armed self-defense, there is reason enough for the Court to bring resolution to this matter. Roberts apparently doesn’t have the stomach for it, nor, apparently, do the Trump nominees, with the possible exception of Neil Gorsuch.
The Bruen case dealt obliquely with the constitutionality of handgun licensing but never directly on it, and never ruled definitively on the constitutionality question apart from asserting, in dicta, that handgun licensing in some “May Issue” States doesn’t offend the Constitution because Government licensing officials don’t exercise unbridled discretion in those jurisdictions. Still, any use of discretion, unbridled or not, still reduces a fundamental, unalienable right to the status of a naked privilege since the State interposes itself between the person and the Right.
The New York Government’s deliberate defiance of Bruen through enactment of amendments to its Handgun Licensing regime, are apparent.
The drafters of the amendments plainly intended to convey the impression of a law that passes constitutional muster without doing so. It is all pretense. As enacted by the Senate in Albany, and signed into law by Hochul, the amendments operate as a blatant attempt at an end run around the Bruen rulings, and not surprisingly, sparked an immediate and angry challenge. Neither Hochul, nor the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, really cared. As long as the State could enforce its unconstitutional Handgun Law, it could chalk it up as a win, which it is since the Government is enforcing the new law, and adding a number of other unconstitutional laws, impacting the core of the right as codified in the Second Amendment.
Three years later, New York is still enforcing its Handgun Law in open defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen rulings. And the Roberts’ Court has allowed this, and, in so doing, has destroyed the Court’s credibility, severely weakened the natural law right to armed self-defense, endangered the legal precedents set in the Court’s prior landmark Second Amendment case rulings, and invited Tyranny into the Nation, having permitted the Anti-Second Amendment States to continue unlawfully constraining exercise of the fundamental, natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.
We, for our part, will not abide the U.S. Supreme Court’s obeisance to and capitulation to the States on matters involving our most sacred natural law right, without which our Free Republic cannot persist. We will continue to call the Court out for its weaseling out of its sacred duty to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Our examination of the impact of the Court’s denial of review of Antonyuk continues.
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