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             The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the individual rights of speech and assembly, as well as certain other fundamental rights. Inherent in our First Amendment freedoms is the right to associate with whomever we choose, or, conversely, to not associate with persons with whom we choose not to associate.

            The designated handgun licensing officer for most of Suffolk County is the Suffolk County Police Commissioner.  His procedures for determining eligibility for a pistol license include a requirement that applicants must provide four character references from residents of Suffolk County who are not related to the applicant, who do not live with the applicant, who are not police officers and who have known the applicant for at least one year.

            This requirement offends the First Amendment, as it requires a person attempting to exercise one fundamental right, i.e., the right to own and possess a handgun for traditionally lawful purposes, to forfeit another fundamental right, i.e., the right to choose those with whom we associate and communicate.  The character reference requirement mandates that applicants for a pistol license must communicate and associate for a prolonged period of time with a specific class of persons, irrespective of the applicant's desire to associate with those persons.

           By requiring citizens of Suffolk County to associate against their will with persons not of their choosing in order to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, the Suffolk County requirement of character references violates both the First and Second Amendments.  Under the current regulatory scheme in Suffolk County, a person applying for a pistol license has a choice: give up your First Amendment rights, or give up your Second Amendment rights.

         Since the protections afforded by the First and Second Amendments are brought into conflict with each other by the Suffolk County Police Department's requirements such that both cannot survive concurrently, the requirements are unconstitutional in violation of both Amendments.  The requirement of character references, therefore, cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and must be held invalid.

          To have standing to challenge this requirement, a person must have applied for a Suffolk County pistol license and been denied solely for failure to provide character references or for having provided character references that do not conform to the Police Department's requirements.  It is important to the integrity of an action challenging the constitutionality of the character reference requirement that the applicant meets all of the other requirements for a pistol license in Suffolk County.

          If you meet this criteria, stand up for your rights and join us in our fight. Send an email to support@lifreedomfund.org today. For all others, join us in our historic fight! Every dollar counts towards preserving our freedoms. Click the donation button below and help us overturn New York State’s restrictions on our constitutional rights. Thank you for your support.

          The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits states from making or enforcing any law which abridges the privileges of citizens of the United States; or which deprives any person of a liberty, without due process of law.  The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental liberty and a privilege of citizens of the United States for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

          The Suffolk County Police Department's procedures for determining eligibility for a pistol license include a requirement that applicants must disclose and explain to the satisfaction of an investigating officer the circumstances of each and every arrest or field appearance ticket issued to the applicant irrespective of the outcome of the charge.  A person who has been found not guilty of an offense with which he or she has been charged, or whose charge has been dismissed, can nonetheless be found guilty of the charge by the Suffolk County Police Department for the purpose of determining that an applicant is not worthy of a pistol license.

          The investigating officer improperly makes findings of fact with respect to a criminal charge that are constitutionally reserved to a judge or jury and can find that an applicant acted in violation of a law despite the charge having been dismissed or the applicant having been found not guilty at trial.  This procedure clearly offends the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Second Amendment and must be held unconstitutional as it deprives persons of their Second Amendment liberties and abridges a privilege of citizens of the United States without due process of law.

         To have standing to challenge this requirement, a person must have applied for a Suffolk County pistol license and been denied solely on the basis of a finding with respect to an offense with which the applicant was charged, where the applicant was found not guilty of the charge at trial or where the charge was dismissed.  It is important to the integrity of an action challenging this requirement that the applicant meets all the other requirements for a pistol license in Suffolk County, and that the peripheral facts surround the incident at issue, with which the applicant was not charged, do not include anything that alone would justify a denial.

         If you meet this criteria, stand up for your rights and join us in our fight. Send an email to support@lifreedomfund.org today. For all others, join us in our historic fight! Every dollar counts towards preserving our freedoms.

The Suffolk County Police Department's Pistol Licensing Procedures Violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

        The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms.  This fundamental liberty includes the right to own and possess a handgun for traditionally lawful purposes.

        A fundamental right protected by the United States Constitution cannot be denied or abridged by the governmental imposition of unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious obstacles to the exercise of that right.  A requirement that has no rational relationship to the right at issue and which is sufficiently vague as to make inconsistent application of the requirement possible is not constitutionally permissible.

       The Suffolk County Police Department's procedures for determining eligibility for a pistol license include a requirement that applicants must be of good moral character.  There is no rational relationship, however, between a person's moral character and his or her exercise of the right to keep and bear arms.  As such, poor moral character cannot serve as a bar to the exercise of the unrelated fundamental right to keep and bear arms for traditionally lawful purposes.

       Additionally, there is no statutory definition of "good moral character" for the purpose of issuance of pistol licenses in Suffolk County.  The natural consequence of such a vague and undefined requirement is that the Suffolk County Police Department may find for any reason it sees fit that a person lacks good moral character and may deny a pistol license to any person for that reason.

       Since the good moral character requirement constitutes an imposition of unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious obstacles to the exercise of a fundamental right and is not rationally related thereto, it directly offends the protections afforded by the Second Amendment.  The requirement of good moral character, therefore, cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and must be held invalid.

       To have standing to challenge this requirement, a person must have applied for a Suffolk County pistol license and been denied solely on the basis of lacking good moral character.  It is important to the integrity of an action challenging the constitutionality of the good moral character requirement that the applicant meets all the other requirements for a pistol license in Suffolk County, and that the underlying facts leading to the determination that the applicant lacks good moral character do not include anything that standing alone would justify a denial.

       The Suffolk County Police Department's pistol licensing procedures are littered with other examples of our Second Amendment protections being denied or abridged by the imposition of unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious obstacles.  These examples include the requirement that applicants disclose details of their private medical history.  Such constitutional challenges would follow the same course as the challenge outlined above.

       If you have been denied a pistol license in Suffolk County because the licensing officer determined that you lack “good moral character”, or if you have been denied because you refused to disclose details of your private medical history, stand up for your rights and join us in our fight. Send an email to support@lifreedomfund.org today. For all others, join us in our historic fight! Every dollar counts towards preserving our freedoms. Click the donation button below and help us overturn New York State’s restrictions on our constitutional rights. Thank you for your support.

Click the donation button below and help us overturn New York State’s restrictions on our constitutional rights. Thank you for your support.

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