Exercising the Right
New York vs. NRA
Anti-gun public officials have been on the warpath for a few years now trying to harass and intimidate gun owners and gun-rights advocacy groups, but such efforts in New York might backfire. Ian Millhiser, writing at Vox, reported on November 6 that the superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), Maria Vullo, “did something incomprehensibly stupid” that might result in a massive loss for anti-gunners at the U.S. Supreme Court. Vox is notoriously anti-gun, and the fact that Millhiser is bemoaning the situation is a great indicator of how badly Vullo messed up.
Vullo began an investigation in 2017 into the NRA’s insurance program, “Carry Guard,” which provided liability coverage for people involved in a self-defense shooting. During the investigation, Vullo sent correspondence to insurance companies seemingly threatening them if they engaged in any business with the NRA or other gun-advocacy organizations. Vullo wrote that insurers should “continue evaluating and managing their risks, including reputational risks, that may arise from their dealings with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations.”
As Millhiser explained, “To be clear, this guidance did not explicitly threaten to take any action against insurers who continued to do lawful business with the NRA. But that does not change the fact that DFS, an agency whose responsibilities include law enforcement, and that had recently brought a $13 million enforcement action against insurance companies that did [allegedly] illegal business with the NRA, was now suggesting that those same companies might face consequences if they did other, legal business with the NRA.... This guidance, and similar … communications between DFS and the insurance industry, do potentially violate the First Amendment. While the Constitution permits a government official to ask any company to stop doing business with the NRA, it does not typically permit the government to coerce private businesses into halting lawful business with an advocacy group. And DFS’s guidance, which was issued so soon after DFS opened its Carry Guard investigation, looks suspiciously like coercion.”
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