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John Lott on the ruling upholding most of the NY SAFE Act

He takes the ruling on, in the National Review Online. It's a very good article. Even under "intermediate review," which is what the court applied (as have almost all other courts), the government bears the burden of proving that the law is a "good fit, if not a perfect one" to serving an important government objective. It requires evidence, not speculation.

The judge cites a criminologist who said that "assault-weapon" crime declined after the Federal ban, but Lott notes that this is contradicted by the criminologist's published studies. (To be fair to the Court, it's possible that no one pointed this out). And he concluded that registration serves some governmental objective, even though there is no evidence showing this.