A federal judge struck down New York’s ban on body armor for ordinary residents, ruling that it violates the Second Amendment.
New York passed the law in 2022 after the racially motivated mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo and insisted that body armor is “a tactical accessory to firearms.”
Two residents and the Firearms Policy Coalition filed the lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra issued his ruling on Wednesday.
The judge applied the Second Amendment framework established by the Supreme Court’s rulings in cases like Heller and Bruen.
In a first-of-its-kind Second Amendment victory, federal judge holds defensive body armor is constitutionally protected, grants FPC summary judgment, and orders permanent injunction against New York's unconstitutional ban. https://t.co/wRRilvPzrQ
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) October 21, 2026
The court found that the Second Amendment's text covers defensive body armor, noting that founding-era dictionaries explicitly included armor in the definition of “arms.”. The Bruen ruling requires current gun control laws to be similar to those enacted during the Founding era. "Indeed, body armor is an 'Arm' protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” Sinatra wrote in his opinion.
Judge Sinatra also argued that the state failed to prove a historical tradition of banning types of armor, as the Bruen decision requires. The court found that New York failed to provide any relevant post-ratification historical analogs for its armor ban.
"The State has not established that its sweeping prohibition on the sale and purchase of body armor 'is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms,'" the judge wrote.
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🚨 HISTORIC 2A VICTORY IN NEW YORK A federal judge struck down New York’s ban on ordinary citizens purchasing body armor, ruling that defensive armor is protected by the Second Amendment. Self-defense includes defense. @EagleEdMartin #2A #GunRights #SCOTUS https://t.co/vxpoJxnbCf
— Firearm Rights for Americans (@FirearmRightsUS) October 22, 2026
Here’s yet another victory for the Second Amendment. The notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to carry body armor unless the government permits it is clearly a constitutional violation.
What if someone needs the armor because they work in a dangerous profession? What if they face threats the government can’t (or won’t) protect them from?
But even further, how does someone owning armor cause harm to anyone else? The notion that the government would tell people that they can’t prevent bullets from piercing their skin is absurd.
Again, this is part of the anti-gunner lobby’s efforts to make people as helpless as possible so they have to rely on the state for their protection instead of themselves.
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