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“Sullivan Law”, which limited the possession of a “pistol, revolver or other firearm of a size

which may be concealed upon the person.” Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81,
84 (2d Cir. 2012), abrogated by Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022) (internal quotations omitted).

The Sullivan Law was subsequently amended to require that applicants for a public carry

license “demonstrate good moral character, and that proper cause exists” for its issuance. Id.
at 85 (internal quotations omitted). At the time of the Bruen litigation, New York maintained

a criminalized prohibition on firearm possession without a license and the “proper cause”

requirement remained a part of the New York licensing regime. Id.

The Second Circuit upheld New York’s licensing regime, citing its prior decision in

Kachalsky. NYSRPA v. Beach, 818 F. App’x 99, 100 (2d Cir. 2020), vacated, 142 S. Ct. 2111
(2022). There, the court had affirmed the “proper cause” requirement in reliance upon

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561

U.S. 742 (2010). Kachalsky, 701 F.3d at 88-89. In reaching that outcome, the Second Circuit
engaged a two-step analysis of the proper-cause requirement, similar to one engaged by

other Circuit courts in assessing comparable statutes in other jurisdictions. (internal cita-

tions omitted). First, the court analyzed the scope of the Second Amendment right, and

specifically whether it protects an individual’s right to possess and carry a firearm in public

and whether the proper cause requirement burdened this right. Id. at 88-93. Then, the court
employed a means-end scrutiny analysis. Id. at 96-97.

The Supreme Court subsequently rejected the two-step approach employed by the

Second Circuit and other Courts of Appeal as engaging “one step too many.” Bruen, 142
S. Ct. at 2127. Citing its opinion in Heller, the Court maintained that courts must “assess

whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and

historical understanding.” Id. at 2131.

Accordingly, the Court proposed a framework that relies on “analogical reasoning” to

interpret modern problems in light of historical tradition. Id. It instructed judges to deter-
mine whether a modern-day regulation and a historical analogue are “relevantly similar,”

using the metrics that are most important to the given context. Id.

Turning to the challenged New York regulation, the Court found that an individual’s
right to carry a handgun in public for purposes of self-defense was well within the purview

of the Second Amendment’s protections. Id. at 2134. Focusing on the Amendment’s text, the

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