Public Housing Tenants Have Second Amendment Rights, Federal Judge Rules

A Glock 17 9 mm (L) and a Sig Sauer P322 .22-caliber handgun are propped up by stands on a glass countertop in front of a wall of rifles in Lawful Defense in Gainesville, Fla., on April 19, 2023. Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times

New Yorkers do not forfeit their Second Amendment rights simply because they live in public housing, a federal judge has ruled.

The Oct. 22 order from Judge Glenn Suddaby of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York permanently bars the Cortland Housing Authority (CHA) from imposing any kind of firearms ban on its residents.

The CHA, which operates 380 federally subsidized housing units in central New York State, can no longer restrict tenants “from owning, possessing, transporting, or using firearms for lawful purposes,” provided they are law-abiding gun owners. It must also pay $150,000 in legal fees.

Suddaby further found that CHA violated the First Amendment when it censored Facebook posts discussing the firearms ban. He ordered the public service agency to stop censoring or deleting posts and comments on its social media pages.

The order still permits CHA to continue prohibiting the display of firearms in common areas like parking lots, except for transportation of firearms and for defense of self or others.

The case, Hunter v. Cortland Housing Authority, was filed last December on behalf of three CHA tenants. They challenged a provision in the CHA’s residential lease agreement. As a condition of living in the subsidized housing, the residents had to agree that they and their guests would not “display, use, or possess any firearms” or other weapons as defined by New York State law anywhere on the CHA property.

In defense of the policy, CHA described gun-related violence in public housing as a “wholly unprecedented” modern problem. It argued that the legal standard established in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision—governments must prove their gun laws are consistent with America’s historical traditions—should be applied with a “more nuanced approach,” since public housing did not exist at the time of the nation’s founding.

CHA’s lawyers compared the firearms ban to regulations on who may live in public housing. They noted that although a family has a fundamental right to live together as one, restrictions still exist for individuals such as convicted drug or sex offenders.

Suddaby found neither argument convincing. He wrote that publicly funded housing for low-income families and individuals has existed in the United States since its early days and that comparing firearms restrictions to family living arrangements was irrelevant.

“Even if the Court were to agree that a more nuanced approach is appropriate here, the Court has trouble accepting Defendants’ argument such an approach constitutes a license for them to analogize the Firearms Ban to a non-firearm regulation,” the judge wrote in an earlier opinion that temporarily blocked the public housing provider’s policy.

“Simply stated, instead of meeting their burden of establishing that the modern regulation is consistent with the National tradition, Defendants base their justification for their Firearms Ban on half of a historical analogy, which actually seems to undermine their case.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), a nonprofit organization representing the CHA tenants, welcomed the decision.

“At some point, it should become abundantly clear to various public housing authorities that gun bans are not allowed,” Adam Kraut, SAF’s executive director, said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Residents do not leave their constitutional rights at the entrance, as each of our victories over the years has affirmed.”