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Amazon's Communist China Impersonation: Industrial Intellectual Property Theft

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Amazon has illegally monster-ed its way to online retail dominance.

Amazon’s No-Profit Model: Bleed Competitors to Death – Then Do Exactly What They Did:

“A key component of Amazon’s murderous business model – was operating for a quarter century making…almost no money whatsoever.  And for many quarters at a time – actually losing coin.”

How has Amazon managed to become the world’s dominant seller of…everything — operating at a three-decade net loss?  By cheating….

Amazon’s Secret Weapon: Cloud Subsidizes Retail:

“For the first time ever Amazon separated retail revenue from cloud services during a quarterly briefing last week and guess what? Amazon is a lousy retailer. It reported a loss of $57 million on $22.7 billion in revenue….

“Retailers have always suspected this, but now they have the facts. Amazon is subsidizing its retail division from profits made from cloud services.”

In general, I am not a huge fan of antitrust law:

“Laws to protect trade and commerce from…unfair business practices.”

I certainly don’t think we need any of the new, awful antitrust expansion bills currently being considered by Congress.

We need only existing law to deal with Amazon’s egregious antitrust violations.  In fact, we should have imposed existing antitrust law on them decades ago.

What Amazon does is decidedly unfair to every retailer on the planet that doesn’t have a multi-billion-dollar-per-annum side hustle to subsidize its retail business.  Which is…every retailer on the planet not named Amazon.

And since Amazon sells everything, they are cheating every other retailer on the planet.

Amazon’s multi-billion-dollar-per-annum subsidies of its retail allow them to artificially undercut the actual market prices of everything they sell.  Which is inconceivably unfair to everyone else:

“Black Friday in brick-and-mortar retail circles – is the day after Thanksgiving, and marks the start of the Christmas shopping season.  It is called Black Friday because most retailers operate in the red (i.e. at a loss) – all year until then.  It is that day they break through into the black.  So obviously, Christmas for them is life-saving crucial.

“Amazon knows this.  So what do they do?:

“‘Amazon is cutting prices ferociously on its products as Christmas shopping picks up, to levels that are break-even or below.’

“They cut prices to sell at a loss – right in the heart of retailers’ most important time of the year.

“Lather-rinse-repeat for a quarter century – and Amazon…(becomes) the biggest of behemoths – crowding out more and more and more competitors.”

All of the above is a quintessential example of “unfair business practices.” So, too, is the following.  Only the following is exponentially worse than just that….

Amazon Copied Products from Its Sellers to Offer Them Cheaper and Position Its Own Brands

Amazon engages in mass Intellectual Property (IP) theft.  Then Amazon engages in mass unfair business practices to favor the sale of the stuff it stole from you — over your stuff:

“Documents revealed by the Reuters agency show that Amazon has used private data of its sellers in India to copy its most popular products and offer them at lower prices, in order to position its own brands on the platform.”

Amazon demands LOTS of data from its victims — oops, I mean sellers.  Which they then use to better steal their victims’ stuff:

“The internal documents also show that Amazon employees studied proprietary data about other brands on Amazon.in, including detailed information about customer returns.

“The aim: to identify and target goods – described as ‘reference’ or ‘benchmark’ products – and ‘replicate’ them….

“The 2016 document further shows that Amazon employees working on the company’s own products, known as private brands or private labels, planned to partner with the manufacturers of the products targeted for copying.

“That’s because they learned that these manufacturers employ ‘unique processes which impact the end quality of the product.’

“The document, entitled ‘India Private Brands Program,’ states: ‘It is difficult to develop this expertise across products and hence, to ensure that we are able to fully match quality with our reference product, we decided to only partner with the manufacturers of our reference product.’  It termed such manufacturer expertise ‘Tribal Knowledge.’”

Does Amazon limit its mass IP steal-and-sell to just India?  Heavens no:

“As part of that effort, the 2016 internal report laid out Amazon’s strategy for a brand the company originally created for the Indian market called ‘Solimo.’

“The Solimo strategy, it said, was simple: ‘use information from Amazon.in to develop products and then leverage the Amazon.in platform to market these products to our customers.’

“The Solimo project in India has had international impact: Scores of Solimo-branded health and household products are now offered for sale on Amazon’s U.S. website, Amazon.com.”

The stuff Amazon stole from India isn’t just for sale in India. Do you think Amazon has limited this industrial, institutional, systemic IP theft to just India?

Do you think they devised an IP theft plan this deep, detailed, and intricate, and then only used it in one country?  Puh-leeze.

Amazon Accused of Cloning Vendor Products and Undercutting Them – 2019

Small Businesses Say Amazon Has a Huge Counterfeiting Problem – 2019

Is Amazon Unfairly Copying Products? EU Quizzes Merchants – 2018

Amazon Uses Data from Third-Party Sellers to Develop Its Own Products – 2020

Got a Hot Seller on Amazon? Prepare for E-Tailer to Make One Too – 2016

Stolen Designs? Copycats On Merch By Amazon – 2017

Allbirds Tells Amazon It Forgot to Steal the Most Important Part of Its Shoe – 2019

Welcome to the Era of Fake Products – 2020

Oh: And Amazon pretends to be a Venture Capital (VC) company – to be an even evil-er stealing company.

How Amazon Crushed Startups by Investing in Them to Steal Proprietary Information for Launching Competitors

Amazon Accused of Stealing the Ideas of Startups That Pitched Them:

“Startups who met with Amazon for potential investment say Amazon soon launched competing products.”

Amazon has now cheated and stolen its way into being a MONSTER (Market Cap: $1.74 trillion).

So imagine this:

Say you spend your life savings – working on, developing, and finally, successfully creating a product.

And then you offer your product for sale on Monster Amazon’s website.  Which you pretty much have to do.  Because Monster Amazon is now basically the only game in town — because Monster Amazon has spent the last three decades murdering nigh every other retailer on the planet.

And then you watch Monster Amazon steal your product — and then rig their searches to favor their product and bury yours.

Oh: And Monster Amazon can charge a lower price for your product than you can because it cost Monster Amazon nothing to steal it from you.

What about it are you and your empty wallet going to do to Amazon and its FAT wallet and armadas of attorneys?

Everyone knows the answer is nothing.

You know it.

And Amazon knows it.

So going forward, no one will invent anything ever again.

Because why would they if they know Amazon will then simply steal it?

So we all get poorer and our lives worse.

Because Amazon is murdering IP creators — just as it has murdered retailers.

Last Brief Filed In SCOTUS Carry Case Is A Thing Of Beauty

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In less than a month the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen; the legal challenge to New York’s carry permitting laws that seeks to have them tossed out as a violation of the Second Amendment. Over the course of the summer, we’ve seen dozens of amicus briefs filed in support and opposition of the NYSPRA’s lawsuit, but now the final brief has been submitted to the court, and it comes from the NYSPRA itself.

The petitioner’s reply brief is a chance to answer the defendant’s argument in writing, which means in this case former Solicitor General Paul Clement is pushing back on New York’s claim that by granting plaintiffs Robert Nash and Brandon Koch “restricted” carry permits that allow them to carry their guns while hunting or target shooting, they’ve satisfied the pair’s right to bear arms. Clement begins his thorough takedown of New York’s defense by noting that the state has in essence conceded that a right to bear arms outside the home exists, and now they’re just arguing over how much the state can intrude on that right.

Indeed, the historical record is so overwhelming that the state no longer disputes that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense. While the state treats that concession as a non-event, it contradicts its earlier arguments and fatally undermines the reasoning of the decision the state seeks to preserve. The state now retreats to the equally indefensible claims that the right vanishes in “populous areas” and extends only to those with a “non-speculative need” to exercise it.

Those misguided claims depend on ignoring constitutional text and rewriting history through selective quotation, excising from the law books anything that does not fit the state’s revisionist narrative, including much of the material relied upon in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

The state takes its revisionism so far as to claim there is no example in all Anglo American history of the carry rights petitioners seek. In fact, at least 43 states allow just that, while, as in Heller, only a few jurisdictions follow New York’s lead of presumptively denying a right that the Constitution guarantees to all.

Clement cuts through all of New York’s B.S. and gets to the meat of the issue right here. The Constitution protects the right to bear arms, and the Supreme Court has already said in Heller that the core purpose of the Second Amendment is self-defense. New York state law forbids carrying a gun in self-defense, unless you’re able to convince a judge or a sheriff that you have some special need to do so.

As Tom King, head of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association said in a statement:

“New York is arguing the entire Empire state is like a government building and should be a huge gun-free zone where only criminals and the privileged can bear arms. The state then defends its unconstitutional and discriminatory policies by cherry-picking facts from history and ignoring inconvenient truths and common sense. The brief we filed today emphasizes the fundamental fact that the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans do not vanish the moment a person steps outside their front door. NYSRPA, the NRA, and gun owners across America look forward to oral arguments on Nov. 3 and hope the Supreme Court rules on behalf of the Constitution.”

New York treats a right as a privilege and in doing so has deprived countless residents of their civil liberties, including the thousands of people sentenced to prison and saddled with a felony record for the “crime” of carrying a gun without a license they have no chance of ever receiving. That’s the issue, and the Supreme Court has the chance to start to set things right when it decides this case.

Clement’s brief also bluntly calls out New York’s attempt to reframe the issue before the court.

When the state is not rewriting the historical record, it is attacking arguments petitioners did not make, while defending a law it did not pass and licenses it did not issue. The state proceeds as if its law restricts the right to carry only at Yankee Stadium and petitioners demand a right to carry always and everywhere. But very nearly the opposite is true. Petitioners do not challenge any of New York’s many separate laws prohibiting handguns in specific, sensitive places. They contest New York’s effort to treat virtually the entire Empire State as a sensitive place and to prohibit petitioners from carrying their handguns for self-defense virtually anywhere, even (contrary to the state’s repeated claims) in remote “back country” areas.

New York wasted a lot of time and ink in its final brief to the Supreme Court arguing that the plaintiffs were seeking the right to carry “guns everywhere and at any time”. That may be something that many gun owners support, but it’s most certainly not the question at hand here.

Clement then turns to the standard of review that should he believes should be used to determine the constitutionality of New York’s Sullivan Act, and once again utterly obliterates the state’s position.

The incompatibility of New York’s outlier regime with the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment is obvious and suffices to resolve this case. By effecting “a complete prohibition” on carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense via a regime suffused with discretion, the Sullivan Law flunks any applicable level of scrutiny. Heller, 554 U.S. at 629.

But it speaks volumes that the state does not even try to defend its law under strict scrutiny or as narrowly tailored (even though this Court just reaffirmed that even intermediate scrutiny demands narrow tailoring). The state instead urges the Court to craft a sui generis form of scrutiny that is heightened in name only and far more lax than the scrutiny that applies to invasions of other textually guaranteed fundamental rights. But the Second Amendment is not “a second-class right.” McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 780 (2010) (plurality op.). The Court should reverse the decision below and hold that petitioners have a right to do what even the state now concedes the Constitution protects: bear arms outside the home for self-defense.

All that, by the way, is just Clement’s introduction. I’d encourage you to read the entire brief if you want to see his fully fleshed-out argument in advance of oral arguments on November 3rd. We won’t get a chance to watch them live, but the Court should post the audio of the arguments within 24 hours, and Clement’s brief may give us a preview of some of the questions the conservative wing of the Court will have for the attorneys defending New York’s denial of the right to bear arms.

Promising Sign For Case Seeking SCOTUS Cert?

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Last week Cam reported on the Supreme Court of the United States denying certiorari to three Second Amendment related cases. The cases were: Russell v. New Jersey, Weber v. Ohio, and Roundtree v. Wisconsin. Respectively, the cases dealt with the matter of carry outside the home, being intoxicated while using a weapon creating a disqualifier, and a non-violent felony for non-payment of child support. Also noted in Cam’s piece are two cases that did not hit the cutting room floor as of yet; Young v. Hawaii and Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Bruck. Those cases deal with the matter of “open” carry of firearms in Hawaii and New Jersey’s prohibition on the possession of detachable box magazines holding over ten rounds. In an update to the piece it was noted:

Neither the Young or ANJRPC case were re-listed for this week’s conference, which means they’re likely being held pending the decision in NYSPRA v. Bruen. I’m taking this as a positive sign that at least four justices believe the Bruen decision is going to substantively address the standard of review that should be used in Second Amendment challenges, which would have an impact on both the New Jersey magazine ban case, and the Hawaii right-to-carry case.

What has gotten little coverage is another case out of New Jersey, P.Z. v. The State of New Jersey. P.Z. was docketed on August 6th, 2021 with the Supreme Court and comes from the same firm that the now denied cert Russell case came from. Evan Nappen as the Council of Record with Louis Nappen. The P.Z. case is teed up to be potentially the one that brings down so-called “red flag” laws. While the actual New Jersey extreme risk protective order statute was not used in this situation, an older law from the 90’s was executed in the taking of P.Z.’s firearms. From the complaint:

Petitioner P.Z. was the defendant before the New Jersey Superior Court Family Part, the New Jersey Superior Court – Appellate Division, and the New Jersey Supreme Court in a weapon forfeiture motion filed by respondent concerning weapons and firearm permit(s) seized from petitioner for safekeeping pursuant to a warrant section of a dismissed domestic violence temporary restraining order.

…

In the case at hand, New Jersey seized petitioner’s firearms “for safekeeping” pursuant to the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act. App. 1. Although the temporary restraining order that contained the warrant was dismissed, New Jersey refused to return said firearms “in the interest of public health, safety or welfare.” App. 29; App. 11-12. Because petitioner’s firearms were seized and not returned to him, New Jersey forever bars him from again possessing firearms. N.J.S.A. § 2C:58-3c(8); N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-7b(3). This is how New Jersey’s firearm permit/forfeiture scheme systematically deprives people of their right to possess firearms in their homes.

If states are going to have firearm licensing and firearm forfeiture statutes, then each provision within such statutes must pass constitutional muster. Petitioner argues that New Jersey’s gun control statutes do not pass constitutional muster since they are vague and/or overbroad balancing tests that do not provide sufficient Due Process or forms of redress, and that the situation requires this Court’s review for relief.

That’s the absurdity of New Jersey’s law. If a firearm is not returned to an individual after it was confiscated due to a domestic violence temporary restraining order (TRO), the person is forever banned from ownership. In this case, the court petitioned for P.Z.’s firearms to not be returned to him or her. The crazy thing about this law is should an individual have such a TRO imposed upon them, with firearms being taken by the authorities, and subsequently the TRO is dismissed, they’re still not in the clear. If the plaintiff decides to not reclaim their firearm even if the prosecutor and court says it’s “ok”, they fall subject to the same disqualifier as P.Z.. In short, if a person does not jump through the hoops to get back a firearm that let’s say is only worth $100.00, and says “ah, forget that piece of junk”, they will be forever banned from firearm ownership. This law is ridiculously egregious.

In what we’d expect nothing less of the State of New Jersey, as of the end of September they did not respond to the filing. On the 29th, the Supreme Court did request (which is a nice way of saying “demand”) a response from the Garden State. Is that a promising sign? Well for one, the case was not denied cert. So maybe? Or is it that the high and mighty hubris attitude of New Jersey does need to continually be kept in check? New Jersey on more than one occasion refused to respond to Supreme Court filed complaints concerning the Second Amendment. The court does have a compelling reason to make all parties participate even if a case is going to be denied. Regardless, P.Z. is another case sitting in waiting for the Supreme Court of the United States to make a move on. Like all these other high profile cases, we’ll be watching P.Z. closely and report any appreciable status change.

If you want to hear Nappen discuss the law involving the non-return of a firearm after such a TRO, you can listen to his Gun Lawyer Podcast Episode 42 where he breaks it down:

Thanks, Senator Cornyn: Even More Bipartisan Idiocy From Our Friends in DC

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Contrary to the conventional wisdom (which is almost always neither) – the current bipartisan infrastructure bill is an exceedingly awful idea.

Federal ‘Infrastructure’? State-Local Government and Crony Bail Outs and Slush Funds

As the late, inordinately great George Carlin noted:

“The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

And so it is yet again with Intellectual Property (IP).

The US government – via all three of its branches branches – has made things exceedingly awful for the IP sector.  And by extension – the entire US economy.

Intellectual Property Protection is a Fundamental Free Market Tenet

Because in this, the Digital Age, IP is even more important than ever before.  And that’s saying something:

“(Abraham) Lincoln called the introduction of patent laws one of the three most important developments ‘in the world’s history,’ along with the discovery of America and the perfection of printing.”

So why has our government done so much stupid, anti-IP stuff?:

“The extreme uncertainty that U.S. patent eligibility ‘validity goulash’ jurisprudence has caused is wreaking havoc on inventors, especially those working on emerging technologies.

“It is also hindering patent owners’ ability to enforce their property rights, investment and licensing deal-making, and giving China advantages in global competitiveness. And it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”

Why would we want the people inventing things — to be free to continue inventing things?  Why would we want to out-invent Communist China?  That doesn’t seem important at all.

I kid — I’m a kidder:

“Former (Trump Administration) U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) director Andrei Iancu made the case, in his dinner speech, of the harm Section 101’s confusion inflicts across the board in America’s patent system.

“He highlighted the damage to America’s competitiveness and security. He hammered how courts continue post facto to invalidate U.S. patents on critical innovations that China and other countries deem patent-eligible subject matter.”

Why am I praising the former head of the USPTO — and the bureaucracy itself?

Because the Founding Fathers expressly enumerated the USPTO’s creation – to do what the USPTO is supposed to do: Issue patents, copyrights and trademarks:

“The Congress shall have power…To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries….”

And Iancu was the best head of that agency since…well, since a very along time ago.

USPTO: One Deep State Swamp Backwater That Is Getting Drained

What is “Section 101,” you ask?:

“Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act states that a patent may be obtained for new and useful processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter.”

This is what we want.  The USPTO issuing patents, copyrights and trademarks.  Which We the People then use to further advance our lives — and our economy grows along for the ride.

How has the biggest court of them all repeatedly screwed this up, you ask?:

“In spite of the broad wording of (Section 101), the Supreme Court has, for many years, held that there are exceptions to subject matter eligibility that are not set forth in that statute.”

This is the Judicial Branch rewriting constitutional law — so that it now is in diametric opposition to the Constitution.

Their serial unconstitutionalities have been contributing mightily to the disastrous damage our nation seems intent on doing to the entire IP sector.

We’re Left to Clean up the Supreme Court’s Messes

All of which is very awful news for the US. But is outstanding news for Communist China.

Our Lack of Patent Protection is Destroying America’s Future Economy

The US Has Institutionalized Big Tech’s Intellectual Property Theft

China Makes Itself More Attractive for IP Creation – The US Makes Itself Much Less So

Injunctions: How Communist China Is Demonstrably Better Than US at IP Protection

Are we going to get a course correction anytime soon?

It’s Time to Roll Back the Attacks Against our Nation’s Inventors

Heavens, no.

In harmonic convergence with the awful Judicial Branch, the awful Legislative Branch has announced a bipartisan agreement – in exactly the opposite of the right direction.

Senators Pat Leahy and John Cornyn Introduce Bill to Restore The America Invents Act

“RAIA would roll back changes introduced by former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu….”

We can at this point expect almost nothing from almost all Democrats.  But what is Republican Senator Cornyn doing?:

“RAIA…(would restore) the America Invents Act (AIA) to what it was always intended to be….RAIA addresses a number of aspects of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)….”

What’s the America Invents Act, you ask?

How the America Invents Act Harmed Inventors

America Does NOT Need the Restoring the America Invents Act

The ‘Restoring America Invents Act’ Would Open the Floodgates for Patent Owner Harassment

But apparently Senator Cornyn doesn’t care.

Oh: And in case you hadn’t already guessed – The AIA was also bipartisan:

“The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) (is) named for its lead sponsors, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).”

What’s the PTAB, you ask?

PTAB: DCs Latest Unaccountable, Power Grabbing Government Board

Federal Panel Destroys U.S. Inventors’ Property Rights

The America Invents Act (AIA) created the PTAB. Which makes the USPTO — do the exact opposite of what the Constitution says the USPTO is supposed to do.

The USPTO is supposed to issue patents. The AIA’s PTAB – mandates the USPTO destroy patents.  You cannot get any more antithetical to the Constitution than that.

But apparently Senator Cornyn doesn’t care.

Oh: And the PTAB is the Executive Branch unconstitutionally pretending to be the Judicial Branch. Even the Supreme Court knows that.

Supreme Court Finds PTAB Judges Unconstitutional

But apparently Senator Cornyn doesn’t care.

Oh: And the vastly-overreaching PTAB is completely duplicative and unnecessary.

There’s Already a Process for Bad Patents, So Let’s Not Destroy All Patents

But apparently Senator Cornyn doesn’t care.

The PTAB was created and over-empowered to do what the existing system wouldn’t do — destroy lots and LOTS of patents.

Iancu minimized the damage PTAB does. Leahy and Cornyn want the PTAB to do as much damage as it possibly can.

The Lies DC Tells – To Steal and Undermine Patents

DC’s Definition of ‘Patent Quality’: ‘How Much Easier Can We Make It to Steal Patents?’

Even more excellent news for everyone besides US – including, especially, Communist China.

So thank you very much, Senator Cornyn.  You’re a big help.

Exclusive: Gun Owner At Heart Of NY Carry Case Speaks Out

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We’re less than a month away from the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in a case challenging New York’s draconian and subjective carry laws, and while we’ve heard from dozens of attorneys on both sides of the argument, we haven’t heard much at all from the individual gun owners who are hoping to see the state’s carry regime declared unconstitutional. Until now, anyway.

Robert Nash, who’s one of two gun owners suing the state, has never before spoken to the press about his involvement in the case, but in an exclusive interview with Bearing Arms, the gun owner lays out the byzantine process of applying for a license and explains why he refused to accept a judge’s decision to deny him an unrestricted carry license and chose instead to take his case to court.

Nash says that in Rensselaer County, where he lives, the process of applying for a carry license goes something like this: first you gather together all of your necessary paperwork, including proof of training and four character references from individuals who will testify to your suitability to carry a gun. Then you hand over all of your documentary evidence along with several hundred dollars and you wait.

For Nash, it took about five months before he found out he’d been granted a “restricted” license, which allows him to take his pistol with him to hunt or target shoot. Carrying for self-defense, however, is still prohibited with a restricted license, and if you’re caught carrying without a permit it’s a felony charge and a mandatory prison term upon conviction. So after a few months with his restricted license, Nash applied to have those restrictions removed.

As Nash explains, under New York’s law county officials have broad discretion and leeway in terms of granting or denying licenses. In Rensselaer County, there are multiple judges assigned to decide the outcome of permit applications, and each of them may have very different views on the right to carry. According to Nash, there are several judges in the county who do issue unrestricted permits based on a general concern over personal safety, but there are also judges who rarely if ever find that an applicant has shown “good cause” or a “justifiable need” to carry a gun in self-defense. Guess who Nash ended up with?

“I submitted a letter to him [the judge assigned to Nash’s application] asking him to remove my restrictions based on local crime in the area,” Nash tells Bearing Arms. “There was a string of robberies which you’ll see in the case, and it was the robberies and just for self-defense that were the reasons I wanted those restrictions removed. And he said ‘no.’ Other judges in the county, I could have submitted the same letter and they would have said ‘yes” in a minute. Even for lesser reasons. I’ve had other people that I know just say they want to protect their wife and kids and they get approved. Same county. Different judge.”

This is a perfect example of the subjective nature of New York’s carry permitting laws. Not only do applicants have to demonstrate a justifiable need to carry a firearm in self-defense, it’s up to the issuing authorities to decide what that justifiable need looks like. You may be lucky enough to get a judge or a county sheriff who believes that the right to bear arms is indeed a constitutional right and approves all permits from those legal gun owners who meet the training qualifications and submits their proper paperwork, or you could end up getting a judge who doesn’t believe that anyone should be walking around with a lawfully carried gun on their person. Your ability to exercise your Second Amendment rights aren’t based on the Constitution in New York, but on the whims of those in a position of authority.

Nash’s denial didn’t sit well with him, and so a few months after his application had been rejected, he reached out to Tom King, the head of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association to let him know what had happened.

“He says ‘I know all about this, you’re not the only one, but I don’t know if we have a case yet. Let me talk to someone at the NRA.’ And he did, and he got back to me right away. And he said, ‘Look, I think we have a case. Here’s the roadmap they want to go with, but are you willing to stick your neck out over this? This is going to be a high-profile, your name’s going to be everywhere kind of thing.’ And without hesitation I said yes.”

So here we are several years later, with Nash, co-plaintiff Brandon Koch, and the New York State Rifle Association set to square off with the state of New York in the Supreme Court on November 3rd (the National Rifle Association is financially supporting the challenge, but is not a named party in the lawsuit). Nash says he’s not expecting the Supreme Court to overturn every carry licensing law in existence, but he is hoping that a majority of justices strike down the subjective “may issue” laws on the books in New York and a handful of other states.

“I just want to get New York’s law fixed. That was my goal from Day One. I don’t think that ‘proper cause’ should be in there at all, and I hope that the justices, when they’re reading New York State’s law and comparing it to the Second Amendment, I hope that they deem that this proper cause requirement violates the Second Amendment.”

Nash is far from alone in his wishes. There are tens of millions of Americans hoping the Court does the same, me included. I appreciate Robert Nash standing up for his own Second Amendment rights and the rights of every other law-abiding citizen, and I’m looking forward to checking in with him again in just a few weeks after the oral arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen take place.