The NRA joined the Second Amendment Foundation, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center and Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus in filing an amicus brief urging the Second Circuit to hold Vermont’s waiting-period law unconstitutional.
In 2023, Vermont enacted a mandatory three-day waiting period between the purchase of a firearm and its delivery to the buyer. After the district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit.
This amicus brief, filed in support of the plaintiffs, outlines several ways in which the district court misapplied the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment test. The brief also provides extensive primary-source evidence showing that purchasers in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could immediately acquire the firearms they purchased.
“The brief, filed in Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs v. Birmingham, underscores the NRA’s continued commitment to defeating unconstitutional waiting periods across the country,” reports NRA-ILA.
Last summer, in an NRA case, the Tenth Circuit struck down New Mexico’s 7-day waiting period. That same month, the NRA filed a challenge to Florida’s 3-day waiting period.
In this amicus brief, the NRA and other groups point out that “the district court defied Bruen by making comparisons to historical laws that were so expansive as to be comical. For all of American history before the twentieth century, people could purchase firearms without any waiting period. That should have ended the historical analysis. The district court had no justification to point to dissimilar laws applying to drunkards in a transparent effort to bail out the government’s modern law.”
We’ll keep you posted on the latest developments.
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