New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Urges Supreme Court to Hear NRA Second Amendment Incorporation Case

• by New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc.

TROY, NY (07/09/2009)(readMedia)-- The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association is spearheading an effort organize over two dozen state firearms owners' associations to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of National Rifle Association v. City of Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Private firearms ownership is an essential component of the free society that the framers of the Constitution envisioned and that right remains integral to the fabric of the United States to this day. The fundamental right of self-defense must be respected by every jurisdiction throughout the country. A law-abiding, competent citizen of New York City, Boston or Chicago should have no less a right to possess a handgun for self defense than a citizen in Texas, Virginia or Vermont.

Current legal scholarship strongly supports the principal that Bill of Rights guarantees apply to state and local governments; a similar Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment would therefore be firmly positioned in the mainstream of current legal thinking. In fact, a bipartisan group of 33 state Attorneys General (joined by the California Attorney General in a separate request) has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court endorsing the NRA's position and asking it to hear the NRA's case. The NYSRPA strongly urges the Court to hear the NRA's case and to extend Second Amendment guarantees to all Americans.