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Independent Women's Law Center No. 20-843 ================================================================================================================ In The Supreme Court of the United States --------------------------------- ♦ --------------------------------- NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION INC., ET AL., Petitioners, v. KEVIN P. B RUEN, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL., Respondents. --------------------------------- ♦ --------------------------------- On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit --------------------------------- ♦ --------------------------------- BRIEF FOR THE INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S LAW CENTER AS AMICUS CURIAE SUPPORTING PETITIONERS --------------------------------- ♦ --------------------------------- MARC H. ELLINGER JOHN M. REEVES STEPHANIE S. BELL Counsel of Record ELLINGER & ASSOCIATES, LLC REEVES LAW LLC 308 East High Street, 7733 Forsyth Blvd., Suite 300 Ste. 1100-1192 Jefferson City, MO 65101 St. Louis, MO 63105 Telephone: (573) 750-4100 Telephone: (314) 775-6985 Email: mellinger@ Email: reeves@ ellingerlaw.com reeveslawstl.com Email: sbell@ ellingerlaw.com Counsel for Amicus Curiae July 20, 2021 ================================================================================================================ i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................. i TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ......................................... ii INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE ......................... 1 INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ........ 1 ARGUMENT ............................................................. 4 I. The Second Amendment Right To Self- Defense Extends Beyond The Home ......... 4 II. Women Especially Benefit From The Right To Carry A Firearm For Self-Defense Out- side The Home ........................................... 9 A. Women Are Subject To Violence That Civil Protection Orders Do Not Always Address ................................................ 9 B. More Women Are Purchasing Firearms To Protect Themselves And Their Fam- ilies ...................................................... 13 C. In Their Own Words: Women Who Use Firearms For Self-Defense .................. 16 CONCLUSION .......................................................... 21 ii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page CASES Application of O’Connor, 585 N.Y.S.2d 1000 (Co. Ct. 1992) .................................................................. 20 Bernstein v. Police Dep’t of City of New York, 85 A.D.2d 574 (1981) .................................................... 20 Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016) ....................................................... 9, 12, 16, 17 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) ................................................................. 5, 7, 8 Drake v. Filko, 724 F.3d 426 (3d Cir. 2013) .................. 5 Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 2012) ............................................................. 5 Moore v. Madigan, 702 F.3d 933 (7th Cir. 2012) .......................................................... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125 (1998) .... 5, 6 Peruta v. City of San Diego, 742 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir. 2014), rev’d, Peruta v. City of San Diego, 824 F.3d 919 (2016) ........................................... 6, 7, 8 CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION U.S. Const. amend. II .......................................... passim RULE 38 RCNY Chapter 5, § 5–03 ....................................... 20 iii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—CONTINUED Page OTHER AUTHORITIES 2019 Crime in the United States, FBI Unified Crime Reporting (2019), https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime- in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/ expanded-homicide-data-table-1.xls ...................... 10 Black’s Law Dictionary 214 (6th ed. 1998) .................. 6 Brian H. Spitzberg, The Tactical Topography of Stalking Victimization and Management 3(4) Trauma, Violence, and Abuse 261 (2002) ............... 12 Bureau of Justice Statistics Releases Results From 2019 National Crime Victimization Sur- vey, Department of Justice (Sept. 24, 2020), https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv19.pdf ......... 9, 10 Caitlyn Kelly, Blown Away: American Women and Guns, 1 (Pocket Books 2004) ..................... 2, 4, 5 Danielle King, Police Won’t Protect a Black Woman Like Me. So I Bought a Gun, The Washington Post (May 28, 2021), https://www. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/28/black- woman-gun-owner-police/ ....................................... 17 Department of Justice, Civil Protective Orders, A Guide For Improving Practice, https://www. justice.gov/file/852781/download .............................. 3 Eugene Volokh, Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2009) .................................................... 7 iv TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—CONTINUED Page Firearm Retailer Survey First Time Gun Buyers During Covid-19, The National Shooting Sports Foundation (May 2020), https://www.nssf.org/ wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FirstTimeResearch. pdf ............................................................................ 14 Gary Kleck, Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun, 86 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 150 (Fall 1995) ........................................................................ 10 Jennifer L. Truman & Rachel E. Morgan, Stalk- ing Victimization, 2016, Bureau of Justice Sta- tistics (Apr. 2021), https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/ pub/pdf/sv16.pdf ...................................................... 10 John R. Lott Jr., Concealed Carry Permit Hold- ers Across the United States, Crime Prevention Research Center 29 (Sept. 21, 2020), https:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id= 3703977 ............................................................. 15, 16 Kim Parker et al., America’s Complex Rela- tionship With Guns, Pew Research Center 2 (June 22, 2017), https://www.pewresearch.org/ social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex- relationship-with-guns/ .................................... 13, 14 Ko Bragg, The new normal: Women and LGBTQ+ people are buying guns in 2020, The 19th (Nov. 3, 2020), https://19thnews.org/2020/11/women- lgbtq-buying-guns-2020/ ................................. 2, 3, 18 v TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—CONTINUED Page Maureen Sheeran & Emilie Meyer, Civil Protec- tion Orders: A Guide for Improving Practice, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, https://www.justice.gov/file/852781/ download ................................................................. 12 Preventing Intimate Partner Violence, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https:// www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartner violence/fastfact.html ................................................. 11 Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence, National Research Council 15 (2013) .............................................. 19, 20 Robyn Sandoval, Why Are Women Buying Guns? (Aug. 20, 2020), https://www.agirlandagun.org/ why-are-women-buying-guns/ ......................... 15, 18 Robyn Sandoval, A Girl & A Gun Women’s Shooting League Delivers Crucial Pro-Gun Voters (July 31, 2020), https://www.agirlandagun. org/women-are-vital-to-2020-elections/ .................. 15 Smith et al., The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2015 Data Brief, Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention (2018), https://www.cdc.gov/violence prevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf ................ 3, 10 Susmitha, Domestic Violence: Causes, Impact, and Remedial Measures 46(4) Social Change (2016) ....................................................................... 12 vi TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—CONTINUED Page Taking Stock of Record-Setting 2020 Firearm Year, The National Shooting Sports Founda- tion (Jan. 7, 2020), https://www.nssf.org/articles/ taking-stock-of-record-setting-2020-firearm-year/ ....... 14 Thomas Warren Tharpe, Female Victims’ Percep- tions of Civil Protection Order Effectiveness in Rural Tennessee, Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies (2019) .......................... 4, 11, 12, 13 Troshynski et al., Civil Protection Orders (2015) ......... 12 When men murder women: An analysis of 2015 homicide Data, Violence Policy Center (2017), http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2017.pdf ............ 11 1 INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE1 Independent Women’s Law Center (“IWLC”) is a project of Independent Women’s Forum (“IWF”), a non- profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization founded by women to foster education and debate about legal, so- cial, and economic issues. IWF promotes policies that advance women’s interests by expanding freedom, en- couraging personal responsibility, and limiting the reach of government. IWLC supports this mission by advocating—in the courts, before administrative agen- cies, in Congress, and in the media—for individual lib- erty, equal opportunity, and respect for the American constitutional order. IWLC and IWF believe that the Second Amend- ment secures a personal right to carry a firearm out- side the home for purposes of self-defense. This right is especially important for individuals for whom a fire- arm is the great equalizer: women. --------------------------------- ♦ --------------------------------- INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT Theresa Kingsbury was driving north from Con- necticut to New York in the early morning hours when 1 No counsel for a party authored any part of this brief; no party
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