Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The fight for gun owner rights continues to develop in New York state.
New York citizen, Ivan Antonyuk, filed a new case, captioned, Antonyuk vs. Hochul, on September 20, 2022. He filed suit in the same U.S. District Court that dismissed, without prejudice, the original lawsuit, Antonyuk vs. Bruen, on August 31, 2022.
On October 6, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in Antonyuk vs. Hochul.
What do we know about the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk?
The Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (CM) recites this about the Plaintiff, Ivan Antonyuk, who was the first individual to challenge Hochul’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) and to bring a new action against Hochul, in her official capacity as Governor of New York——
“Ivan Antonyuk is a natural person, a citizen of the United States and of the State of New York, and resides in Schenectady County, New York. He is a law-abiding person, who currently possesses and has maintained an unrestricted New York carry license since 2009, and who is eligible to possess and carry firearms in the State of New York.”
Five other New Yorkers joined Ivan Antonyuk, as Party Plaintiffs, in a new lawsuit filed directly against Hochul. Five of the six Plaintiffs, including Antonyuk, hold unrestricted concealed handgun carry licenses. One of the six Plaintiffs holds a restricted employment handgun carry license. The New York handgun licenses are all valid.
In the CM, the Plaintiffs set forth their justification for filing it, delineating their points as follows——
“Governor Hochul (1) has openly criticized and expressed contempt for the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, (2) took action to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling by ‘merely chang[ing] the nature of th[e] open-ended discretion” from “proper cause” to “good moral character (3) pushed enactment of the CCIA through the legislature and (4) signed the bill into law, and (5) subsequently has acted as the interpreter-in-chief with respect to the CCIA’s provisions. The Governor has opined on the statute’s proper interpretation and provided guidance and instructions to officials throughout the state of New York as to its implementation according to her desires. For example, Governor Hochul (1) has instructed that the CCIA’s new licensing process applies even to those whose carry license applications are already submitted and pending prior to September 1, 2022; (2) has claimed that the ‘good moral character’ activity will involve door-to-door interviews of a person’s neighbors; 4 (3) has claimed that the CCIA’s plain text should not apply to certain parts of the Adirondack Park in contradiction to the wishes of the bill’s sponsors; 5 and (4) has opined that the CCIA’s “restricted locations” provision creates a “presumption . . . that they don’t want concealed carry unless they put out a sign saying “Concealed Carry Weapons Welcome Here.” To be sure, Governor Hochul ‘is not the official to whom the Legislature delegated responsibility to implement the provisions of the challenged statutes’ but, by her actions, she certainly appears to believe that she is. Moreover, and again, the Superintendent [Kevin Bruen] who is tasked with implementing and enforcing various provisions of the CCIA, is the Governor’s underling, making the Governor (whose hand is clearly at work in the Superintendent’s actions) a proper Defendant [citing documents omitted].”
In a subsequent Plaintiff Court filing, September 22, 2022, filed two days after the filing of the CM, in a document captioned, “Memorandum Of Points And Authorities In Support Of Plaintiffs’ Motion For A Temporary Restraining Order, Preliminary Injunction, And/Or Permanent Injunction,” the Plaintiffs cogently lay out Governor Hochul’s unconscionable defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in NYSRPA vs. Bruen and the imminent harm that defiance poses to the life and safety of Plaintiffs:
“New York continues to infringe the Second Amendment right to bear arms, treating most people as unworthy of the natural right to self-defense. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent vindication of the People’s rights to keep and bear arms in public in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 2022 U.S. LEXIS 3055 (2022), New York has enacted new restrictions in explicit contravention not only of the Court’s holdings, but also the text of the First, Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
New Yorkers are now facing the reinstitution of discretionary licensing standards, imposition of draconian carry restrictions in a cornucopia of nonsensitive public places, invasion of protected First and Fifth Amendment conduct, a four-and-a-half-times expanded training requirement and accompanying exorbitant costs, and conversion of all private property into de facto “gun-free zones” that “would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense,” Plaintiffs request that this Court enter a temporary restraining order, followed by a preliminary and/or permanent injunction, to stop the irreparable harm Plaintiffs are suffering and will continue to suffer absent emergency relief.”
The Plaintiffs added these pertinent points in their Memorandum——
“Superintendent Bruen, already found by this Court to be a proper defendant previously, is responsible for the conduct for those under his authority, including threats they make against law-abiding gun owners such as Plaintiffs. Indeed, the First Deputy Superintendent of the State Police, Steven Nigrelli, recently stated the following during a press conference, available on YouTube: ‘For those who choose to violate this law . . . Governor, it’s an easy message. I don’t have to spell it out more than this. We’ll have zero tolerance. If you violate this law, you will be arrested. Simple as that. Because the New York state troopers are standing ready to do our job to ensure . . . all laws are enforced.’ This statement represents a direct threat to all who violate the CCIA, on all fours with Cayuga Nation’s “announce[ment] [of an] intention to enforce the Ordinance’ a group whose members would be ‘obvious targets of any criminal enforcement of the Ordinance.’ Here, the New York State Police, a law-enforcement entity with statewide jurisdiction and officers stationed across New York, has specifically and expressly stated a clear intent to enforce all aspects of the CCIA, without exception, through arrest and prosecution, in every instance where it is violated [documents and case citations omitted].”
The Plaintiffs provided a sound and cogent argument for the issuance of the TRO. The District Court agreed.
In its Decision issued on October 6, 2022, the U.S. District Court granted the Plaintiffs’ TRO but stayed its operation for three days to allow the New York Government to file an emergency appeal.
The Midterm Elections are looming, and, with her position as New York Governor on the line, Kathy Hochul will waste no time filing an appeal. She doesn’t want this TRO hanging over her head.
It is all the worse for Hochul since she’s made much of how the CCIA protects New Yorkers and that the U.S. District Court, as she claims, agreed with her, in the earlier case, Antonyuk vs. Bruen. It didn’t!
So gleeful was the Governor when the District Court dismissed the suit against the CCIA in that case, she didn’t bother to recognize or acknowledge that the Court opposed the CCIA and dismissed the suit on a “technicality”: the standing issue.
But with the technicality overcome and the TRO awarded in Antonyuk vs. Hochul, she harrumphed on her website the same day the District Court released its decision, October 6, 2022:
“While this decision leaves aspects of the law in place, it is deeply disappointing that the Judge wants to limit my ability to keep New Yorkers safe and to prevent more senseless gun violence. We are working with the Attorney General’s office to review the decision carefully and discuss next steps in an appeal. I will continue to do everything in my power to combat the gun violence epidemic and protect New Yorkers.”
Hochul can barely restrain herself. The decision leaves hardly anything of the principal provisions of Hochul’s CCIA in place. Hochul and the other Anti-Second Amendment zealots in her Administration and in the New York State Legislature are fuming. Hochul knows that the guts of the CCIA are to be excised, and both she and her Administration intend to prevent that.
Hochul will file an appeal. That is expected. It’s a dead certainty. And the U.S. District for the Northern District of New York made provision for it. The Court gave Hochul three days to file her “emergency” appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her people must have been working on it over the weekend.
Expect to see news of Hochul’s appeal to the Second Circuit on Monday, October 10, or on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at the latest.