Cert petition filed · July 7, 2026 · Supreme Court of the United States

Caetano 2.0

Calce v. City of New York · FPC & SAF · Cooper & Kirk · from the Second Circuit

In 2016 the Supreme Court ruled 8–0 that stun guns are protected by the Second Amendment. Ten years later, New York City still bans them — and the Second Circuit just upheld the ban by putting the burden of proof on the citizens. Now the Court is being asked to close the circuit it opened a decade ago.

The right, as written: Heller → Caetano → every bearable arm Break in the line: Calce v. City of New York, unpublished

01 The bottom line

The Supreme Court already decided this case. Once. Unanimously.

2016

The Supreme Court ruled 8–0 that stun guns are protected by the Second Amendment.

Caetano v. Massachusetts. A unanimous per curiam vacating a state court that said otherwise. Most people assumed that settled it.

2026

New York City still bans them — and the Second Circuit just upheld the ban.

Calce v. City of New York, April 13, 2026. The panel said the plaintiffs failed to prove stun guns are “in common use.” It issued the ruling as an unpublished order that binds no one.

JULY 7

FPC and SAF asked the Supreme Court to step in. Their petition calls it what it is: “Caetano 2.0.”

Three questions presented. One target: the burden-flipping trick that lower courts use to sustain every arms ban — stun guns and AR-15s alike.

02 Where the current starts · 2016

The woman Massachusetts prosecuted for not being shot

Jaime Caetano was a Massachusetts woman who left an abusive relationship so violent it once put her in the hospital. She got multiple restraining orders against her ex. In Justice Alito’s words, “they proved futile.”

Homeless and, as she testified, “in fear for [her] life,” she accepted a stun gun from a friend. One night her ex was waiting for her outside her workplace. He towered over her by nearly a foot and outweighed her by close to 100 pounds. She showed him the stun gun and told him she would use it if he didn’t leave her alone. He “got scared and he left [her] alone.”

No shots. No blood. A textbook defensive use of a non-lethal arm. Massachusetts prosecuted her for it — because the Commonwealth banned civilian stun guns outright.

The Massachusetts high court upheld her conviction. The Supreme Court of the United States took one look and threw the ruling out — per curiam, no argument, not a single justice in dissent — because the state court had contradicted Heller three separate ways.

ERROR 1 — MASSACHUSETTS SAID

Stun guns aren’t protected because they “were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment.”

The Supreme Court: Heller says the Amendment “extends … to … arms … that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” The founding-era test was invented in defiance of a direct quote.

ERROR 2 — MASSACHUSETTS SAID

Stun guns are “dangerous per se” and “unusual” because they’re “a thoroughly modern invention.”

The Supreme Court: The Court called this the same error wearing a different hat: “equating ‘unusual’ with ‘in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment’ … is inconsistent with Heller for the same reason.”

ERROR 3 — MASSACHUSETTS SAID

Stun guns aren’t “readily adaptable to use in the military,” so they fall outside the Amendment.

The Supreme Court: Heller “rejected the proposition ‘that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.’” The right belongs to citizens defending themselves, not to a militia procurement office.

“The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
Heller, quoted in Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016) (per curiam)

“If the fundamental right of self-defense does not protect Caetano, then the safety of all Americans is left to the mercy of state authorities who may be more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe.”
Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, concurring in the judgment

03 The resistance · 2015–2026

A decade of lower courts spitting on the precedent

Caetano was supposed to be the warning shot: summary reversal awaits courts that explain away Heller. Instead, the courts of appeals spent ten years perfecting the workaround. Watch the pattern — every entry in red is a court finding a new reason why the most commonly owned arms in America aren’t “arms.”

2015

Friedman v. Highland Park

Cert denied · Seventh Circuit ban stands

The Court lets a municipal “assault weapon” ban stand. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, dissents from the denial: the Seventh Circuit is “relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.”

2016

Caetano v. Massachusetts

8–0 per curiam · the correction

The Court summarily vacates Massachusetts’ stun gun ruling. Alito, concurring, warns that the state court’s reasoning “poses a grave threat to the fundamental right of self-defense.”

2017

Kolbe v. Hogan

Fourth Circuit, en banc · cert denied

Maryland’s AR-15 ban upheld. The en banc majority declares AR-15s “weapons of war” beyond the Amendment’s reach entirely — reading Heller’s M-16 aside as a license to ban the most popular rifle in America.

2018

Silvester v. Becerra

Cert denied · Ninth Circuit rubber stamp

Thomas, dissenting alone from the denial: “The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan. And the lower courts seem to have gotten the message.”

2022

NYSRPA v. Bruen

6–3 · the reset

The Court tries again, in bold print this time: text first, then history — and at the history step it is the government that “must … justify its regulation.” The burden sits on the state. That was the whole point.

2023

Bevis v. Naperville

Seventh Circuit

Illinois’ AR-15 ban survives anyway. The court holds AR-15s aren’t even “bearable arms” under the plain text — “bearable,” it decides, secretly means “in common use.” The trick migrates from history to text.

2025

Duncan v. Bonta · Snope v. Brown

Ninth Circuit en banc · cert denied

California’s magazine ban upheld: magazines aren’t “arms.” Weeks later the Court denies cert on Maryland’s AR-15 ban. Thomas: “I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America.” Kavanaugh, respecting the denial: the Court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”

2026

Calce v. City of New York

Second Circuit · April 13, 2026

Full circle. The exact weapon from Caetano — the stun gun — and a federal appeals court holds, ten years later, that nobody proved it’s an “arm.” The wheel is back where it started.

04 The holdout · New York City

The ban that outlived a unanimous Supreme Court

After Caetano, the stun gun bans fell one by one — struck down in Massachusetts, Illinois, and Rhode Island, conceded by consent decree in New Jersey, and in 2019 a federal court struck New York State’s ban in Avitabile v. Beach. The State didn’t even appeal. Today stun guns are lawful to possess in all fifty states. One jurisdiction kept enforcing a ban anyway: New York City.

N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 10-135

Makes it “unlawful for any person … to have in his or her possession within the jurisdiction of the city any electronic stun gun.” Flat possession ban. No permit path, no self-defense exception.

N.Y. Penal Law § 265.01(1)

The state-law layer: criminal possession of an “electronic stun gun” or “electronic dart gun” (a taser). A federal court struck this ban as unconstitutional in Avitabile v. Beach (2019) — and New York State chose not to appeal.

The penalty

Class A misdemeanor. Up to 364 days in jail — for carrying the arm the Supreme Court unanimously said is protected.

The exemptions

Police and military are carved out. Ordinary citizens are not. Under Penal Law § 265.20(a)(3), even a New Yorker licensed to carry a deadly handgun is barred from possessing a non-lethal stun gun.

The result

In the petition’s words, these laws now “effectively only apply in New York City” — the State has been enjoined since 2019, but the City kept enforcing its own ban. One city, out of step with fifty states.

8–0

Caetano vote, 2016

states where stun guns are legal to possess

holdout: New York City

364

days in jail under NYC’s ban

6.5M

stun guns sold in the U.S., 2008–2020

years since the Supreme Court ruled

05 History repeats · New York City

Ten years later, it happened again

Amanda Kennedy is one of the petitioners. As the petition recounts it, she was driving in New York City when a pedestrian attacked her — striking her car, striking her face through the window, and trying to open her door.

She displayed her stun gun. That was the end of it — in the petition’s words, the mere presence of the weapon “ended the altercation.” No one was shot. No one was even shocked.

Then the police arrived, learned she possessed an electronic weapon, and charged her with a crime. Jaime Caetano, 2011. Amanda Kennedy, a decade on. Same weapon, same defensive use, same prosecution — after a unanimous Supreme Court decision that was supposed to make it impossible.

A city that will prosecute a woman for successfully defending herself without hurting anyone is not regulating arms. It is punishing self-defense.
Our read — the facts above are from the certiorari petition and the record

06 The trick · April 13, 2026

How the Second Circuit saved the ban: flip the burden of proof

Bruen built a two-step test and put the historical burden on the government. The Calce panel never got there — it ended the case at the threshold by demanding the citizens prove their weapon is popular enough to deserve constitutional protection.

The test as written

Heller · Bruen · Wolford

Step one: does the Second Amendment’s plain text cover the conduct? Heller answered for arms: it reaches “all instruments that constitute bearable arms.” A stun gun is a bearable arm. Done.

Step two: the government “must … justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The burden is on the state. If it can’t carry it, the ban falls.

The test as rewritten

Calce v. City of New York · 2d Cir.

Step zero, invented: before the government proves anything, the citizen must first prove the arm is “in common use today” — with “studies, reports, or data.” No spreadsheet, no rights.

The panel: “Plaintiffs bear the burden of proof on both of these inquiries.” The plaintiffs’ evidence — including the Supreme Court’s own words in Caetano — was dismissed as “miscellaneous bits and pieces.” Case over at the threshold. New York never had to defend its ban at all.

“Plaintiffs bear the burden of proof on both of these inquiries.”
Calce v. City of New York, No. 25-861-cv (2d Cir. Apr. 13, 2026) (summary order)

Not for publication

Here is the tell. The panel issued this as an unpublished summary order — the first page announces, in capital letters, that “RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT.” A ruling that blesses the last stun gun ban in America, in the teeth of a unanimous Supreme Court decision on the same weapon, and the court printed it in disappearing ink. Courts confident in their reasoning publish it. Courts ducking review bury it.

Seven pages · non-precedential · 2026 WL 980092

07 The stakes · from tasers to AR-15s

This isn’t about stun guns. It’s about the test for every arms ban — including Virginia’s.

The burden flip is the whole ballgame

Post-Bruen, blue-state bans don’t survive on history — the history isn’t there. They survive because courts end the case at step one by demanding citizens prove “common use” to a judge’s satisfaction before the state proves anything. Kill that move and the machinery propping up every arms ban in America loses its main gear.

It’s the same rulebook as the AR-15 cases

The Calce order cites the Second Circuit’s Connecticut “assault weapon” precedent for its burden rule — the same line of cases the Supreme Court just agreed to review in Grant v. Higgins. Stun gun or AR-15, the government’s argument is identical: you didn’t prove your arm is common enough to count. One methodology decision resolves both.

Virginia lives downstream of this fight

SB 749 — the AR-15 ban a Lancaster County judge enjoined on June 25 — will eventually face federal review in the Fourth Circuit, which put the common-use burden on citizens in United States v. Price and blessed Maryland’s ban in Bianchi. If SCOTUS fixes the burden in Calce, Richmond has to prove its 2026 bans fit a founding-era tradition. It cannot.

One term could set the test for every arms ban

Viramontes and Grant decide whether the AR-15 — the most popular rifle in the country — is protected. Calce decides who bears the burden for every arm, lethal and non-lethal, now and next. Grant both and October Term 2026 becomes the term the arms-ban question finally gets an answer.

08 The forecast · five reasons

Why the Court is likely to act on this one

REASON 1

Wolford just reaffirmed Caetano — twelve days before the petition

On June 25, 2026, Justice Alito’s majority in Wolford v. Lopez built a centerpiece hypothetical around “a resident of Hawaii whose situation is like that of Jaime Caetano” — a woman prosecuted for defending herself “when she used a non-lethal weapon.” The Court then laid out the plain-text inquiry as three questions. “Common use” is not one of them.

“The disagreement is instead whether courts can smuggle additional limits, drawn from our regulatory tradition, into the plain-text stage of the inquiry. The answer is and always has been no.”
Justice Barrett, concurring in Wolford v. Lopez (2026)

REASON 2

The Court already took the AR-15 cases

Cert granted June 30, 2026 in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, consolidated for October Term 2026. The justices are already committed to the arms-ban methodology fight. Calce is the zero-cost companion: grant it, hold it, or GVR it — every option is easy, and the petition invites all three.

“Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”
Question presented, Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238 (cert. granted June 30, 2026, consolidated with Grant v. Higgins)

REASON 3

There is a genuine circuit split, and the petition maps it

The Second, Fourth, and Tenth Circuits make citizens prove common use at step one; the Seventh gets there by redefining “bearable.” The Sixth Circuit holds the opposite: common use is a historical question where the government carries the burden. The Seventh Circuit itself admitted there “is no consensus on whether the common-use issue belongs at Bruen step one or Bruen step two.”

REASON 4

Summary reversal is squarely on the table — that’s what Caetano was

Caetano itself was a summary vacatur: no briefing on the merits, no argument, 8–0, because the error was that obvious. The petition tells the Court the error below is “so patent that this Court would be justified in resolving this Petition summarily.” The precedent for correcting exactly this defiance, on exactly this weapon, already exists — the Court wrote it.

REASON 5

The justices have been telegraphing this for years

Kavanaugh in Snope: the Court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.” Thomas, again and again since 2015, on lower courts treating the Second Amendment as a “second-class right.” A federal circuit upholding a stun gun ban — via an unpublished order, on a burden theory Wolford just rejected — is the cleanest possible exhibit of the defiance they keep describing.

09 The petition · verbatim

Three questions presented. Four ways to win.

Whether a challenger to a ban on a type of arm must demonstrate that the arm is “in common use” to establish that the ban implicates the Second Amendment’s plain text.

Whether the challenged New York State and New York City bans on electronic arms such as tasers and stun guns implicate the Second Amendment’s plain text.

Whether the challenged New York State and New York City bans on electronic arms such as tasers and stun guns violate the right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

Questions presented, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Calce v. City of New York (filed July 7, 2026) — reproduced verbatim

GRANT

Full briefing and argument. A plenary ruling that “common use” is the government’s burden at step two — the methodology decision that governs every arms-ban case in the country.

REVERSE SUMMARILY

The Caetano treatment: no argument needed when the error is this patent. The petition expressly invites it.

GVR AFTER WOLFORD

Vacate and send it back: the Second Circuit ruled on April 13; Wolford came down June 25 and pulled the rug out from under the panel’s step-one theory.

HOLD FOR VIRAMONTES

Park the petition until the AR-15 cases are decided, then dispose of it in light of that ruling. The petition asks for this as the floor.

“Indeed, just as in its precursor in Caetano, the error in the Second Circuit’s decision below is so patent that this Court would be justified in resolving this Petition summarily.”
Petition for certiorari, Calce v. City of New York, at 3

10 The fine print — read honestly

What we know, and what we’re calling

The petition was filed July 7, 2026. As of July 8, no Supreme Court docket number had been posted, the City had not responded, and no conference date existed. Grant-versus-hold-versus-GVR is our read of the petition’s own alternatives, not a prediction with a date on it.

“Caetano 2.0” is the petition’s own phrase — page one, sentence one: “This case essentially is Caetano 2.0.”

The Second Circuit panel — Judges Barrington D. Parker, Raymond J. Lohier, Jr., and Sarah A. L. Merriam — ruled unanimously, on summary-judgment grounds: it held the plaintiffs failed to put common-use evidence in the record, not that stun guns are unprotected forever. That is exactly why the petition attacks the burden allocation rather than the fact question.

The order is unpublished (2026 WL 980092) and non-precedential under the court’s own Local Rule 32.1.1. It binds no future panel. The ban it leaves standing binds 8.3 million New Yorkers.

Ownership figures: “approximately 200,000 civilians owned stun guns” as of 2009 comes from Massachusetts’ own brief in Caetano; the ~4.5 million stun guns and 300,000 tasers figure is from the Avitabile record; 6.5 million sold 2008–2020 is from O’Neil v. Neronha (D.R.I. 2022), as cited in the petition.

This page is commentary and opinion in support of the petition’s position. The other side’s position — that Bruen’s step one “as historically understood” language folds common use into the plain text — is the holding of the Second, Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits. We think Wolford forecloses it. The Supreme Court has not yet said so.