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.”…