Why would New York want to ban non-lethal weapons? Isn't that just going to make people buy lethal weapons instead? I'm confused. What was their argument?
New York's defense is that stun guns and tasers are not 'in common use' for lawful purposes — so, under the Second Amendment framework set in Bruen, the ban doesn't even trigger constitutional protection.
If the Supreme Court agrees with the challengers that electronic arms are plainly protected 'bearable arms,' the city's rationale collapses — and the Court could use this case to stop lower courts from adding a 'common use' requirement at step one of the Bruen test.
4 details4 sources2 disagreements
- The Second Circuit upheld the ban because plaintiffs "failed to provide evidence that stun guns and tasers are in common use for lawful purposes," treating that as a required element of their Second Amendment claim.
- The city's underlying argument is essentially that stun guns are not like firearms — they're not what the amendment's text was historically understood to protect, and their use in self-defense hasn't been shown to be widespread enough to count.
- The cert petition calls the Second Circuit's approach "Caetano 2.0," noting the Supreme Court already ruled in 2016 that stun guns are bearable arms and that a ban like Massachusetts' was unconstitutional.
- Plaintiffs also argue the city's logic perversely pushes people toward lethal force: if non-lethal options are banned, a person who wants any self-defense tool is left with a gun — the exact opposite of what a public-safety rationale should want.
Room for disagreement
- Gun-rights groups say the 'common use' requirement is a judicial invention that lets cities ban any weapon that isn't yet popular enough — a catch-22, since bans themselves suppress common use. New York and the Second Circuit respond that plaintiffs simply failed to meet their evidentiary burden under Rule 56, citing a lack of record evidence on stun gun popularity.
- The city waived its right to respond to the cert petition in August, suggesting it sees little need to defend the ban before the Supreme Court — or that it prefers to let the Second Circuit's reasoning stand without additional briefing.
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AI answers with web search. May be wrong.
