People v. Ryan

City Magistrate. At the examination on the complaint charging the defendant, Sadie Ryan, with violating section 1897 of the Penal Law (Consol. Laws 1909, c. 40), popularly known as the Sullivan Pistol Law, counsel for the defendant admitted the facts alleged, that on the date mentioned in the complaint the defendant resided in the city and county of New York, .and that at that' time she had in her actual physical possession a firearm, to wit, a revolver, containing four shells loaded with powder, and ball, and one shell that had been exploded, without having first procured a permit to possess such pistol. It seems that defendant in examining a trunk in her home found it contained a loaded revolver, which was accidentally fired, and that, when the policeman whose attention was attracted by the report arrived on the scene and saw the defendant in her own premises with the revolver in her hand, he arrested her.

The defendant now moves to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it charges no violation of law, since, as is claimed, any law which abridges the right to bear firearms is unconstitutional and void. The motion of the defendant must be denied. Frequent reference has been made to the United States Constitution on the theory that it grants “the right of the people to keep and bear arms unrestricted.” Nothing is further from the truth. The second amendment of the federal Constitution reads as follows:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This amendment, it has been held, is not a limitation on the powers of the state. Federal Statutes, Annotated, vol. 9, p. 247, and cases there cited.- The infringement referred to as being prohibited is such as Congress might enact. To the state is left the power to preserve its own security and to legislate in the matter of bearing firearms.

In the federal statutes (annotated) we find it stated that the right of the people to keep arid bear arms is not infringed by laws prohib

This provision of the law of the land, for such is the Constitution, is in effect a restriction on the powers of the national government, and that alone Congress may in no wise abridge or restrict the right to bear arms. United States v. Cruikshank (1875) 92 U. S. 553 , 23 L. Ed. 588 .

It must be perfectly plain that no state shall be restricted in its right to exercise its police powers in matters that concern the regulation of the manufacture, sale, and possession of firearms.

The statute under consideration forbids any person having in his possession a firearm of the size that may be concealed upon the person without first having procured a permit to possess it. This is merely a regulation as to how and in what manner one may keep or bear firearms of the character described. The matter concerns the state alone, and its legislation in the premises is in my opinion constitutional and reasonable.

I must hold the defendant for trial for the Court of Special Sessions.