New York City has agreed to pay $10,001 to a man after it settled a case. The city refused to issue any permits to him that are needed to purchase firearms.
Joseph Garofalo applied for two licenses to possess and purchase firearms. One permit was for a Premise Residence handgun license, and one was for a rifle/shotgun license. The New York Police Department (“NYPD”) License Division denied both applications. He appealed both denials but lost both appeals. The NYPD claimed that the man lacked the needed “good moral character” to have a gun. Mr. Garofalo was not prohibited during his application period or since.
Mr. Garofalo was the subject of a protective order in the past, which he violated. The violations included contacting his ex-wife. Also, he was arrested in the past for domestic violence but was not convicted of any crime. He was not the subject of any protective orders at the time of his application denials for the firearms. These reasons are not the ones that the NYPD used to determine he was not of “good moral character.” The fact that Garofalo didn’t disclose the arrest or the previous protective order was why the NYPD issued the denials over his permits.
The “good moral character” clause of the New York law is concerning to many in the gun community. It allows the government to deny a permit solely on subjective means. The Supreme Court’s Bruen decision says that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right and must be treated like any other constitutionally protected right. The Bruen opinion also stated that any “may issue” permitting scheme is inherently unconstitutional. New York claims their scheme is “shall issue” and not “may issue.” However, allowing subjective denials might be unconstitutional. Many gun rights advocates and many legal scholars claim that the scheme runs afoul of Bruen.
Recently, a court in Massachusetts ruled that a permitting scheme cannot be subjective. Since “good moral character” is subjective, it probably wouldn’t stand up to constitutional scrutiny. The Massachusetts case has been referenced through motions of supplemental authority in several instances across the country. New York City is most likely aware of the case and its results.
After the denial, Mr. Garofalo sued the city in state and federal court. He claims that New York City violated his Second and Fourteenth Amendments. He also states the law is “arbitrary and capricious.” The federal court was decided to be the correct jurisdiction because the federal court system has jurisdiction over “all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” The Second Amendment claim was that the city was interfering with his right to bear arms—the Fourteenth Amendment challenge deals with the Equal Protection Clause.
Some speculate when New York City realized they would not win the case and that it could destroy the entire law, they decided it was better to settle the case. The city agreed to pay $10,001 to the man for violating his rights. New York City doesn’t admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, meaning their law can continue. Even though this is a loss for the city, a good percentage of New York gun owners would have preferred the case to go the distance to give it a chance to knock down the law.
About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
$10,001 is not a lot for a right denied. Not much for all the red tape and driving back and forth he probably had to do in his quest to get permission to exercise that right. Still, I guess it is better than nothing.
Imagine if every citizen that NYPD did this to got a settlement of $10,001 or hopefully much more. I wonder how long it would take them to start doing right.
Now, everyone else that has ever been denied should file lawsuits too.
He should have won ten times that.
Make Hochul pay these judgements out of her own pocket , the tax payers should not be paying for her ignorance .
As the saying goes, ‘everyone has his price’. I would not have accepted this offer. In fact, I wouldn’t enter the lawsuit with any hope of being a further burden upon fellow taxpayers. My intention would have been solely to get this unconstitutional law stricken from the books and recover my legal expenses in doing so. Unless I missed something in this article, this person has a $10,001.00 “windfall” but can’t use it to purchase any firearms, since he still didn’t get his government issued 2nd amendment permission slip. (Hope he used it to move to a free state.) It’s… Read more »
Did he get his permits?
10k? that’s it?
NYC law is certainly a may issue situation and should be eradicated.
There are a couple of cases up before the Supreme Court that they must chose to decide and decide them in favor of our 2A rights once and for all
If it wasn’t “$10,001, lawyer fees, court costs, and immediate issuance of requested permits”, he got fucked hard, dry, and without benefit of a reach-around…
A key component of effective and durable Jim Crow legal systems is being able to budget for and maintain a wall of legal defense against those who peacefully and lawfully assert their natural rights. When you control the treasury you can use public funds to suppress the rights of the public, break recalcitrant litigants financially and if that does not work, send the modern version of the progressive Klan, Antifa, to visit them. Same old game.
The only way to stop things like this from happening over and over again is to require the individual bureaucrat responsible for the wrongful denial to cough up the $10k judgement, NOT the city itself.