Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
WASHINGTON, DC (July 5, 2022) – Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation (FPCAF) today announced the filing of a brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Torcivia v. Suffolk County, which challenges the government’s ability to enter private homes and seize firearms from an individual suspected of no crime, and subject to no penal control or supervision. These seizures, which the Second Circuit categorized as a “special-needs exception” to our Fourth Amendment rights, are a clear violation of our rights and a perversion of justice. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.
“The Second Circuit’s application of the ‘special needs’ exception—the rejected ‘community caretaking’ exception by another name—would allow many of the home intrusions the founders vehemently opposed, undermining the Constitution and centuries of tradition,” argues the brief. “Its dismissive treatment of the Fourth Amendment is part of a larger trend in which lower courts are undermining the Bill of Rights to avoid protecting firearms and firearm owners.”
"The sanctity of the home has been central to the idea of freedom for millennia," said FPC Law's director of constitutional studies and brief author, Joseph Greenlee. "From Ancient Rome to early modern England to colonial America, it was widely understood that a people could be free only if their homes were inviolable. America's founders, having experienced repeated home intrusions by the British, created a zone of security for the home through the first five amendments in the Bill of Rights. The Second Circuit's decision, however, undermines this lengthy tradition and our constitutional protections, so we’re hopeful that the Supreme Court will step in and restore our rights.”