New York Agrees to Stop Requiring Social Media Disclosures for Gun Permits

Jake Fogleman

March 17, 2026  5:26 pm

New York will no longer enforce a controversial provision of its strict requirements for concealed carry permit applicants, according to a new settlement agreement.

The agreement was filed on Monday in the Northern District of New York in the case Antonyuk v. James. It bars the state from enforcing its social media disclosure requirement–at least against the plaintiffs in the case.

“The State Defendants consent to the entry of an injunction against their enforcement of N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(l)(o)(iv), which requires applicants for a concealed carry license to provide ‘a list of former and current social media accounts of the applicant from the past three years to confirm the information regarding the applicants character and conduct as required in’ N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(l)(o)(ii), against any Plaintiff,” the settlement agreement reads. “The Superintendent shall ensure that the PPB-3 license application form does not include language requiring social media information.”

The settlement chips away at New York’s trend-setting Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA). It’s another victory for gun-rights activists who’ve fought the law in court after it was passed back in 2022. However, many of the CCIA’s restrictions remain in good standing as other legal challenges continue to work their way up the federal court system.

The law, adopted shortly after the Supreme Court held the state’s previous concealed carry legal regime violated the Second Amendment in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, imposed new hurdles on carry permit applicants and designated dozens of public locations off-limits to lawful gun carry. It also inspired similarly impacted states like New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Hawaii to follow suit with Bruen-response laws of their own—each of which has been hotly contested in court over the last few years.

Monday’s settlement agreement stipulates that the injunction against New York’s social media disclosure requirement will remain in place unless and until the state legislature repeals it outright. The deal further resolves that portion of the lawsuit without a ruling on the merits.

Under the terms of the deal, the individual plaintiff who challenged the requirement is dismissed from the suit. Meanwhile, the remaining plaintiffs agreed not to raise future challenges to the social media requirement.

New York state did not concede that the provision is unconstitutional, and the agreement will carry no precedential effect for other legal challenges.

At the same time, the bulk of the lawsuit will proceed. The remaining plaintiffs will continue to challenge other parts of the CCIA, including the law’s extensive list of “sensitive locations” where carrying a firearm is prohibited. Those include places such as public parks, public transportation, theaters, and establishments that serve alcohol.

The battle over the law’s restrictions has ping-ponged around the federal court system ever since US District Judge Glenn Suddaby first blocked most of them in a November 2022 ruling. The Second Circuit eventually reversed most of that injunction while keeping in place Suddaby’s order blocking the social media requirement and a few other restrictions. The Supreme Court has twice declined to get involved in the case, first doing so in 2024 when it granted, vacated, and remanded the challenge back to the Second Circuit to be reconsidered in light of its US v. Rahimi decision. When the plaintiffs again asked the High Court to review the Second Circuit’s essentially unchanged second ruling, the Court flatly denied the petition last April.

The case now remains in Suddaby’s court for an eventual decision on the merits of the Second Amendment challenge.

Monday’s settlement agreement is not the first time New York has tactically retreated from one of the CCIA’s restrictions in the face of legal scrutiny. After multiple rulings against the state’s total ban on guns in places of worship—including in Antonyuk—New York lawmakers quietly amended the CCIA in May 2023 to exempt “persons responsible for security” from the ban.

Furthermore, though it has declined to involve itself directly in the status of New York’s gun carry restrictions, the Supreme Court will soon issue a decision on the legal fate of a Hawaii gun-carry restriction that mirrors New York’s law. In Wolford v. Lopez, the Court will determine whether lawmakers can ban by default licensed gun carry on private property accessible to the general public, such as retail stores and restaurants. New York became the first state in the country to enact such a policy when it adopted the CCIA in 2022.

The Court heard oral arguments in Wolford in January and is expected to issue a decision by the end of June.