BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

A New York State law banning the possession, sale and transfer of body armor by civilians has been struck down in federal court. 

U.S. District Judge John Sinatra issued a 47-page opinion on Oct. 21, saying the right for citizens to bear arms has historically included body armor, a device that is purely defensive. 

Sinatra, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said the decision falls in line with the Supreme Court's precedent set forth in NYSRPA v. Bruen, which largely rewrote how the 2nd Amendment is to be interpreted. 

“Indeed, body armor is an ‘arm’ protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” Sinatra wrote. “As such, regulation in this area is permissible only if the state demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. New York fails that test.”

The state's Penal Law, 270.21, prohibited possession by civilians beginning in 2022 after a racially motivated shooting in a predominantly black neighborhood of Buffalo left ten dead and three injured. 

That shooting on May 14, 2022 led state officials to pass the first set of wide-ranging gun control laws in the state that year, including significant restrictions on firearm dealers after it was discovered the shooter crossed state lines to purchase "high capacity" magazines in Pennsylvania. 

Despite purchasing a rifle that was compliant under state law, the dealer in question and a parts manufacturer were both sued in civil court and settled with the families of the deceased and injured. 

The shooter legally purchased the firearm and passed the required background check, despite having been held for a mental health evaluation previously. 

The dealer, Vintage Firearms, has since permanently closed, while Mean Arms, the company responsible for making parts to make the firearm compliant, agreed to never sell its products in New York again and paid out $1 million to those affected as part of the deal. 

Under the legislation, lawmakers enhanced pre-existing "red flag laws," also known as extreme risk protection orders, to require courts to file the appropriate paperwork with the state within 24-hours. 

Body armor was also banned under the legislation and new restrictions were put in place for civilians to purchase a semi-automatic rifle as a result of the legislation. 

But with a portion of the law struck, state officials will have 14 days to appeal the decision. 

In the meantime, an injunction is on hold pending appeal from the state, according to Sinatra's decision.

If state officials fail to or decline to, the law will be officially struck the day after elections are completed, November 4. 

The Firearms Policy Coalition, which brought the case forward, cited precedents from District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, as well as the Bruen decision in their arguments which began in 2024. 

FPC President Brandon Combs called the win a "humiliating defeat for New York's authoritarian gun control regime." 

“Governor Hochul and Attorney General James actually made it a crime for peaceable people to buy body armor — equipment designed to stop bullets and save lives — and had the tyrannical audacity to call that ‘public safety,’” he wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “Not satisfied with banning guns, they tried to ban the means of surviving criminal gunfire, too. We said from the beginning that this immoral ban was absurd and unconstitutional.”

State officials have yet to appeal the decision but historically have appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals after decisions have been issued by Federal District Courts.