Federal Court Drives a Stake Through New York’s “Vampire Rule,” But Won’t Touch the Park Ban

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NEW YORK, NY — A federal appeals court just struck down one of New York’s most aggressive post-Bruen carry restrictions, handing a major win to the Firearms Policy Coalition. But the same ruling left another gun ban standing, and both halves matter.

On May 18, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its decision in Christian v. James, an FPC case brought alongside FPC member Brett Christian and the Second Amendment Foundation. The court affirmed a permanent injunction against New York’s “Private Property Provision,” the rule critics call the “vampire rule.”

That provision flipped the normal default on its head. It made carrying a firearm a felony on any private property open to the public unless the owner posted clear signage allowing guns or gave express consent. In plain terms, a licensed New Yorker could be charged with a class E felony for walking into a grocery store, a gas station, or a pharmacy, simply because the owner had not affirmatively opted in. Carry was banned everywhere by default.

Judge Joseph Bianco wrote for the majority, holding the provision unconstitutional as applied to property open to the public because the State could not show it fits within the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, the test Bruen requires.

The State threw ten historical statutes at the court. The panel rejected every one. Most of the colonial and founding-era laws targeted unlicensed hunting on private farms, not gun violence on property open to the public. That left New York leaning on an 1865 Louisiana law and a near-identical 1866 Texas law. Here is where the ruling gets pointed. The State itself conceded these were, in its own words, often enacted by racist legislatures and codified prejudices that existed at the time. The court refused to treat racially motivated, selectively enforced laws as a legitimate historical analogue.

The majority also nailed the real-world effect. Because most owners never bother to post signs, a rule like this effectively bans carry on nearly all private property, leaving the right meaningless for anyone who actually plans to enter a store.

Now the other half. The same panel upheld New York’s “Public Parks Provision,” rejecting the plaintiffs’ facial challenge. The State assembled more than sixty regulations from across more than twenty states, spanning roughly 1858 to the early 1900s, that banned firearms in urban parks. Starting with Central Park in 1858, the majority found a long, unbroken tradition and concluded the provision is constitutional at least as applied to urban parks. The court declined to rule on rural parks, since the plaintiffs raised that argument too late.

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Judge Steven Menashi concurred in part and dissented in part. He agreed the vampire rule is unconstitutional and would have gone further, but he broke with the majority on parks. The founding generation knew public parks like Boston Common and did not ban carry in them, he argued, and the understanding of the right in 1791 should govern, not a tradition that emerged in the late nineteenth century. As he put it, evidence of tradition unmoored from original meaning is not binding law.

FPC is celebrating the win while signaling the parks fight is not over. “The FPC Grassroots Army put a stake in the heart of New York’s ‘vampire rule’ carry ban today,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “We’ll keep fighting in this and other cases to eliminate unconstitutional bans on carry in public parks so people can defend their lives in these public places.”

The case now heads back to the district court for a final order. The vampire rule is dead as to businesses open to the public. The park ban survives for now, and with the Supreme Court already weighing a nearly identical Hawaii law, this issue is far from settled.

If you carry in New York, do not get ahead of the law. The injunction covers private property open to the public, but the state’s other sensitive-location restrictions remain in force. Know the current rules before you carry anywhere.