On December 8, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided Antonyuk v. Chiumento, a case which challenged many provisions of New York’s law regulating the public carrying of firearms, the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (“CCIA”), based on the Second Amendment.
One challenged provision of the CCIA related to its requirement that an applicant for a concealed-carry license attend an in-person meeting with a licensing officer and disclose, among other things, “a list of all former and current social media accounts from the preceding three years.” Plaintiffs (several individuals, one church, and two advocacy groups each claiming to be adversely affected by the requirements of the CCIA) moved for a preliminary injunction to enjoin enforcement of this provision. The district court granted the preliminary injunction as to this provision, holding that the CCIA violated the Second Amendment by conditioning the issuance of a license on the disclosure of the applicant’s former and current social media accounts for the preceding three years. The district court found this requirement of the law lacked a sufficient basis in the “Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” one of the analytical steps a court must consider as set forth in the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen.
Rob Nussbaum has lectured numerous times on legal issues and social media and how social media and other electronic evidence may be admitted into evidence at trial. He concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and appears regularly in New Jersey federal and state courts.
For any questions relating to whether your website or social media presence can be used against you as a basis for personal jurisdiction, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.