(The Center Square) — A coalition of gun rights groups are asking a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling upholding New York City’s ban on Tasers and stun guns, arguing the restrictions are unconstitutional.
In a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Division, the Firearms Policy Coalition said New York City’s ban on electronic arms “flies in the face of the Second Amendment” because previous federal court rulings have held that stun guns “are not even ‘arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment’s plain text.”
“As weapons, they are indisputably within the meaning of the term “arms,” the group’s lawyers wrote in the 63-page appeal. “And there is no historical justification for banning a weapon that is both common among law-abiding citizens looking to defend themselves and markedly less dangerous than other common instruments they could choose for that purpose.”
In March, U.S. District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos rejected the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs “failed” to provide any evidence that stun guns and Tasers are in “common use” and that “no reasonable jury could return a verdict” that the electronic weapons are protected by the Second Amendment.
“The Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Ramos wrote in the ruling. “Therefore, Plaintiffs must show that stun guns and tasers are in common use today, and that they are typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”
New York is one of a handful of states that outright ban private ownership of stun guns or Tasers. They are legal in nearby New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island. The New York City Police Department has been using electronic weapons since 2008.In 2019, a federal judge ruled that New York’s ban on the civilian possession of tasers and stun guns is unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the Second Amendment. The ruling followed similar decisions by courts in Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Since then, gun rights groups have been filing legal challenges to formally overturn the ban. Critics of New York City’s ban frame the debate around empowering victims of domestic violence, arguing stun guns offer an alternative to pepper spray and firearms. They say some people prefer electronic weapons to firearms for self-defense. New York state lawmakers have pushed for years to end the city’s ban on electronic weapons and set new regulations on the sale and use of personal defense devices. In the court filing, the FPC said the city’s ban on “a weapon that is much less dangerous than many that are in common use, in addition to violating the Second Amendment, also creates “perverse incentives.” “A New Yorker who desires to have a means to defend herself but is denied the ability to own and carry an electronic arm is likely to seek to do so through another means,” the group’s lawyers wrote. The FPC’s lawyers also suggest the stun gun ban challenge has broader, national implications, because it will require the appellate court — which covers New York, Connecticut, and Vermont — to consider the issue of constitutional protections for “arms” for the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which established that there is a constitutional right to carry a handgun.
