In May, the U.S. Supreme Court revived a National Rifle Association’s lawsuit that accused a New York state official of violating its First Amendment rights. The decision reinstated a lawsuit the NRA filed in 2018 alleging that the head of the New York State Department of Financial Services pressured banks and insurance companies not to do business with gun rights organizations after a shooting at a Florida high school.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Star Parker explains why her organization, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), joined an amicus brief in defense of the insurance companies. Parker argues this case is another instance of the Biden administration’s shameful attack on First Amendment rights.
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The following is an excerpt from the above video:
We [CURE] joined with more than 30 other organizations in filing [an] amicus friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in defense of the insurance companies’ freedom of association. We argued that the government cannot censor or punish a speaker or entity like the NRA by punishing third-party associations and organizations like the insurance companies who dare to associate with the speaker, in this case, the NRA.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said that [the] New York official could not use her power to “threaten enforcement actions against entities that the department regulated ‘to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun promotion advocacy.'” The U.S. Constitution protects the rights of individuals from government officials who are willing to trample on those rights to accomplish their political goals.
This case is an instance of such disregard for the rule of law in the state of New York, but sadly, it is not an isolated incident. We are seeing an increasing amount of such weaponization by the Biden administration and overzealous officials at the state level.