This week, Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in the matter of National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo. Mountain States is proud to join the brief, which supports the National Rifle Association (NRA) against efforts by the State of New York to trample the fundamental rights of the NRA and its members to advocate for Second Amendment-protected rights.
As has been obvious for years, New York generally opposes Second Amendment-protected freedoms. To its frustration, however, it recently lost the most prominent Second Amendment case of the century—New York State Pistol & Rifle Association v. Bruen. New York’s loss in Bruen means that many of its knee-jerk regulatory efforts regarding guns, magazines, and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms would be struck down by the courts. So, it hit on a new strategy: drive effective advocates for Second Amendment rights like the NRA out of business in the state—as an extra benefit for New York’s gun grabbers, this might allow it to renew its assault on gun rights without vocal opposition.
Specifically, New York targeted companies providing insurance to the NRA in New York with pressure campaigns, investigations, and other tactics meant to cause them to stop doing business with the NRA, which would then face the choice to operate without protection in the state, or to pull out (the state’s preferred outcome). But this will not stand.
The Supreme Court held more than half a century ago that the government may not achieve indirectly through pressure tactics on third parties what it cannot do directly. New York knows that it cannot directly censor and disrupt the NRA, and its attempt to do the same thing through the back door, by pressuring third party insurance companies, fares no better.
MSLF and its Center to Keep & Bear Arms strongly support and sign onto Advancing American Freedom’s legal arguments submitted to the Supreme Court. We look forward to the Supreme Court hearing and deciding the case.
