[5] The case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen was decided in the U.S. Supreme Court, evaluating the constitutionality of this law on Second Amendment grounds.

Arguments were held in November of 2021, with the majority of the court striking down the "proper cause" requirement of the current law on June 23, 2022, for violating both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

[7] Sullivan and other prominent New Yorkers were under public pressure to act, in the form of letters and recommendations from George Petit le Brun, who worked in the city's coroner's office, after a "brazen early afternoon" murder-suicide near Gramercy Park.

[8] The law also made it a felony to own or sell other items defined as so called "dangerous weapons", including "blackjacks, bludgeons, sandbags, sandclubs, billies, slungshots and metal knuckles.

"[9] According to Richard F. Welch, who wrote a 2009 biography of Sullivan, "all the available evidence indicates that Tim's fight to bring firearms under control sprang from heartfelt conviction.

[23] The court applied the test established in Bruen requiring the government to "affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.

§922(g)(1) which makes it unlawful for any person who has been convicted in any court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.

[24] The first person convicted under the law was an Italian immigrant named Marino Rossi who was traveling to a job interview and carrying a revolver for fear of the Black Hand.

[25] At sentencing the judge, condemning Italian immigrants in general, declared: "It is unfortunate that this is the custom with you and your kind, and that fact, combined with your irascible nature, furnishes much of the criminal business in this country.

[3] Whether this was part of the law's intent, it was passed on a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Italian rhetoric as a measure to disarm an alleged Italian and immigrant criminal element.

[27] Days before the law took effect The New York Times published an article saying "Low-browed foreigners bargained for weapons of every description and gloated over their good fortune in hearing of the drop in the gun market before it was too late".

"[30] According to New York City historian George Lankevich, the Act was passed so that Sullivan could have friends in the police force plant handguns on his rivals and take them to jail.

[30] In his concurring opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, Justice Samuel Alito wrote All that we decide in this case is that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense and that the Sullivan Law, which makes that virtually impossible for most New Yorkers, is unconstitutional.