Second Circuit Panel Strikes ‘Social Media’ Review for New York Concealed Carry Permits

A three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld district court injunctions on Friday against three New York gun controls, including one requiring concealed carry applicants to submit their social media accounts for review.

The panel–which decided 3-0 to uphold the injunctions in the consolidated cases–was comprised of George H. W. Bush appointee Dennis Jacobs, Bill Clinton appointee Gerard E. Lynch, and President Joe Biden appointed Eunice C. Lee.

The plaintiffs in the cases were Brett Christian; Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc.; and Michael Spencer and his Tabernacle Family Church.

The focus of the cases is New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), which the Democrat legislature passed in response to the Supreme Court of the United States’ Bruen (2022) decision.

The three-judge panel upheld an injunction against a CCIA requirement that concealed carry permit applicants disclose social media information for review as part of the application process. They also upheld an injunction that placed a de facto ban on carrying concealed on private property “held open to the general public.”

CCIA also instituted “sensitive places” in which concealed carry is prohibited. The “sensitive places” included houses of worship, and the three judges upheld an injunction against enforcement as “applied to Pastor Spencer, the Tabernacle Family Church, its members, or their agents and licensees.”

The cases are consolidated under Antonyuk v. Hochul, No. 22-2908 in the United States District Court for the Second Circuit.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.