Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-280_ba7d.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

29 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

lidity of Inspector Lunetta’s assertion, and given the loca-
tion of the City’s seven ranges, the assertion is more than
dubious.12 

Inspector  Lunetta’s  final  justification  for  the  travel  re-
strictions was only marginally stronger.  It goes like this.
Suppose that a patrol officer stops a premises licensee and 
finds  that  this  individual  is  carrying  a  gun,  and  suppose
that that the licensee says he is taking the gun to a range 
to  practice  or  is  returning  from  a  range.    If  the  range  in
question is one in the City, the officer will be better able to
check the story than if the range is outside the officer’s ju-
risdiction.  App. 79–80.

How strong is this argument?  The City presumably has 
access to records of cases in which licensees were cited for 
unauthorized  possession  of  guns outside  the  home,  and  it 
failed to provide any evidence that holders of target licenses 
had  used  their  right  to  practice  at  out-of-city  ranges  as  a 
pretext.  And it is dubious that it would be much harder for 
an officer to check whether a licensee was really headed for 
an out-of-city range as opposed to one in the City.  If a li-
censee claims to be headed for a range in the City, the of-
ficer can check whether the range is open and whether the
individual appears to be on a route that plausibly leads to
that range.  But how much more difficult would it be to do 
the  same  thing  if  the  range  is  in  one  of  the  counties  that 
border New York City or across the Hudson River in New
Jersey?  A  phone  call  would  be  enough  to  determine  the 
range’s operating hours, and the route would still be easy 

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12 Two  of  the  seven  City  ranges  (28%)  were  located  in  Staten  Island 
(home to under 6% of the City’s residents), and the trip there from the 
other  boroughs  is  not  quick.   Another  range  (the  only  one  open  to  the 
public) was located in the north Bronx.  See Brief for Appellants in No.
15–638, p. 32 (CA2) (explaining that, for plaintiff Colantone, “traveling
from his home in Staten Island to the authorized range Olinville Arms 
in the Bronx[ involves] a far longer drive” than to a shooting club in New
Jersey).