By Jack Phillips

A federal judge this past week overturned New York state’s ban on the sale and purchase of body armor, saying it violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

In a 47-page ruling on Oct. 21, U.S. District Judge John Sinatra wrote that body armor is encompassed under the Second Amendment’s right for citizens to bear arms. He also wrote that under two gun-related Supreme Court rulings in 2008 and 2022, the understanding of what “arms” meant at the time of the founding of the United States would include protective armor.

The state’s “body armor ban violates the plain text of the Second Amendment and the Nation’s historical traditions have not permitted such a curtailment of the right to keep and bear arms,” the judge wrote, adding that the “restriction categorically violates the right of individuals to keep and bear arms for self-defense.”

Sinatra cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen ruling that established the legal test on firearms, which is that “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

He wrote that defensive armor would likely be understood as “an ‘arm’ protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment during the time of the founding of the United States

“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,” Sinatra added. “New York fails that test.”

At issue is a New York law that bans the sale and purchase of body armor as a class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a class E felony for any offense thereafter.

The ban was signed into law by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022 as part of a larger gun-control package after a man shot and killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket. The shooter was wearing body armor at the time of the incident, lawmakers said at the time.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at the time of her signing of the measure, which also includes barring sales of semi-automatic weapons to people under 21. She said that this and other restrictions “will save lives.”

Sinatra did not rule on those measures—only the body armor ban.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley, and acting District Attorney for New York’s Erie County Michael J. Keane were named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition and two individuals in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

The pro-firearms group hailed the judge’s order in Heeter v. James as a victory, writing that the law effectively “made it a crime for peaceable people to buy body armor” that is designed to “save lives.”

“Not satisfied with banning guns, they tried to ban the means of surviving criminal gunfire, too,” the group said in a statement last week.

Sinatra’s ruling allows for a 14-day stay in his order to allow the state to appeal his decision.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.