A federal judge in the Western District of New York struck down the state's first-of-its-kind ban on civilian purchases of body armor, ruling that the law violates the Second Amendment. In Heeter v. James, Judge John Sinatra held that body armor qualifies as "arms" under the Constitution's original meaning, citing the Supreme Court's reliance on 18th-century dictionaries defining arms as "weapons of offence, or armour of defence." The law had prohibited law-abiding residents not in eligible professions from purchasing body armor for self-defense.
The court rejected the state's argument that founding-era armor was rare and largely ineffective against bullets, saying that argument runs "headlong" into the definitions adopted in Heller. It also noted that the Second Amendment extends to bearable arms that were not in existence at the founding, just as it covers modern firearms and stun guns. Because the plaintiffs demonstrated that body armor is protected, the burden shifted to New York to justify the law under the nation's historical tradition of arms regulation.
The state cited English monarchs and the Statute of Northampton as evidence of a tradition restricting armor, but the court found those analogies insufficient and largely irrelevant to the American right. It also noted the state was unable to identify a single post-ratification regulation on body armor in the United States. The ruling signals that broad public safety concerns alone cannot justify banning a constitutionally protected arm.}