Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James argued in a supplemental brief filed Friday that the state’s ban on civilian possession of body armor was constitutional since body armor was not a weapon.
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) sued James in July 2024 on behalf of three New York residents who wished to purchase body armor for personal protection. In the reply brief filed Friday, attorneys from James’ office responded to what the Supreme Court’s decision in Wolford v. Lopez meant for the case, which targets the state’s unique restriction on civilian possession of body armor.
“Plaintiffs seize on a single clause in Wolford’s recap of the Heller opinion – not part of the Court’s enumeration of the governing test, which, again, requires a ‘weapon,’ where Justice Alito described the earlier case as saying that arms ‘refers to implements used for offense or defense,’” James’ office argued. “But that clause was a paraphrase, not a quotation – the word ‘implement’ does not appear in the cited section of Heller or anywhere else in that opinion. And even if ‘implement’ were the test, body armor would fall outside of it since a gun or knife, which is carried in the hand and actively used, fits the term; body armor, which is passively worn, does not.”
FPC dismissed the Friday filing when reached for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Letitia James is an idiot. We look forward to extending her losing track record against FPC,” FPC said in a statement. James did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
New York enacted its ban on private ownership of body armor in the aftermath of a May 2022 mass shooting in a Buffalo supermarket that left ten people dead. The state is the only one that prohibits possession of body armor by civilians who are not involved in a list of authorized professions.
“Going back to the Heller decision, the Supreme Court has been clear that the Second Amendment’s scope of ‘arms’ covers both ‘weapons of offense’ as well as ‘armor of defense,’” Second Amendment Foundation Senior Director of Litigation William Sack told the DCNF. “In the recent Wolford decision, SCOTUS once again reiterated, ‘‘Arms,’’ . . . refers to implements used for offense or defense.’”
“As ‘arms’ under the Second Amendment, the plain text inquiry of the Bruen analysis is met, and the burden then shifts to New York to justify its ban with history,” Sack continued. “It’s going to have a very hard time doing so.”
The Department of Justice admitted in multiple legal filings since May 2025 that the “beneficial use” of suppressors likewise overwhelms their misuse by criminals and that suppressors are protected under the Second Amendment.
The government’s repeated admissions that the benefits of silencers overwhelms their “criminal use” could invoke the rationale behind the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in Heller, which declared that arms in common use for lawful purposes fall under the Second Amendment’s protection.
(DCNF)
