If New York's strict antigun laws are overturned in the near future, it may be the work of a hot dog vendor.
The vendor, Daniel Vargas, is due next month in court to fight misdemeanor charges that he kept an unlicensed revolver loaded on a basement shelf in his apartment. The case, which has generated 23 hearings and been heard by no fewer than 10 different judges as it winds through Brooklyn's lowest criminal court, would be of little general interest, except for the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Second Amendment protects a right to keep a handgun at home for self-defense.
Now, suddenly, Mr. Vargas's case, as well as a handful of other cases, are testing the authority of district attorneys to prosecute people for gun possession, a strategy that Mayor Bloomberg has emphasized in his criminal justice policies.
In about half a dozen New York City cases reviewed by The New York Sun, defense lawyers have filed briefs arguing that the Supreme Court's decision requires the dismissal of gun possession charges against their clients.
The briefs question the constitutionality of the city's treatment of all unlicensed guns as illegal guns — mere possession of which can be punished by up to 15 years in prison.
At least two of the cases involve gun arrests during traffic stops. The motions ask New York courts to expand the federal Supreme Court decision to find that the "right to bear arms is not limited to the physical confines of the home," as a Brooklyn lawyer, Andrew Miller, wrote in one such case.
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http://www.nysun.com/new-york/gun-rights-of-new-yorkers-may-rest-on-case-of-hot/83043/