Federal Court Revives Lawsuit Targeting Big Apple’s Handgun Restrictions

A federal appeals court resurrected a lawsuit Tuesday against New York City targeting restrictions on handguns.

New York City has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, according to the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA). Senior United States Circuit Judges Reena Raggi and Debra Ann Livington, both George W. Bush appointees, and United States Circuit Judge Michael H. Park, a Trump appointee, ruled that multiple provisions of the law, which include a limit on how any guns could be listed on a carry permit and a limit of one handgun purchase every 90 days, potentially violated Second Amendment rights.

“Plaintiffs’ other challenges—to rules (1) limiting to one the number of handguns that a person can carry at any particular time, (2) mandating a 90-day waiting period between handgun purchases, and (3) limiting to two the number of handguns that a person can register on a carry license—should not have been dismissed at the first step of the Bruen analysis,” Raggi wrote in the opinion. “At that step a court properly asks whether the activities being regulated fall within ‘the normal and ordinary meaning of the Second Amendment’s language,’ i.e., the right “to keep and bear Arms,” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 20 (internal quotation marks omitted). Each of the activities at issue warrants an affirmative answer to that question.”

United States District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a Clinton appointee, had initially dismissed the case with prejudice in December 2024, arguing that because New York City’s laws were not a “permanent” ban, the Second Amendment was not implicated.

“As for the remaining claims, we conclude that they should not have been dismissed at step one of the Bruen analysis and, accordingly, we vacate the challenged judgment in that respect and remand to the district court for further consideration of these claims,” Raggi wrote in the opinion.

The appellate panel took note of the 90-day waiting period between handgun purchases in the opinion, observing that the substantial delay was a means to “constrain” the Second Amendment rights of individuals.

“The 90-day rule serves categorically to limit the acquisition and, therefore, the possession and carry, of multiple firearms,” Raggi wrote. “Like the Ninth Circuit, we conclude that where the purpose of an ancillary rule is thus to delay the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the rule is properly understood at step one of the Bruen analysis materially to constrain those rights.”

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control group funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, filed a brief defending Ratkoff’s initial decision in June 2025, claimed that the measures New York imposed with its law were necessary to stop firearms trafficking.

“New York City’s anti-trafficking law targets a specific problem through a precise measure: it limits the acquisition of firearms to one handgun and one long gun every ninety days to combat the persistent and serious problem of straw purchasing. As the City has explained, and the district court correctly found, this law is constitutional,” Everytown claimed.