Key developments on Oct. 21:
From today's decision by Judge John Sinatra (W.D.N.Y.) in Heeter v. James:
New York enacted a first-of-its-kind law prohibiting law-abiding residents-who are not engaged or employed in an eligible profession-from purchasing body armor for self-defense. New York enacted this legislation "to further strengthen gun laws." New York's body armor legislation, however, violates the Second Amendment….
In D.C. v. Heller (2008), the Court made it clear what the term "Arms" meant when the Second Amendment was ratified. In explaining that "[t]he 18th-century meaning" of the term "Arms" is "no different from the meaning today[,]" the Court quoted multiple dictionaries from the Seventeenth Century. Specifically, "[t]he 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary defined 'arms' as '[w]eapons of offence, or armour of defence.' 1 Dictionary of the English Language 106 (4th ed.) (reprinted 1978) (hereinafter Johnson). Timothy Cunningham's important 1771 legal dictionary defined 'arms' as 'any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.' 1 A New and Complete Law Dictionary; see also N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (reprinted 1989).'' As a result, this Court is bound by Heller's textual analysis, which demonstrates that the word "arms" included armor at the Nation's founding (as it does today)….
The State submits that, during the Founding Era, armor "had become rare or even entirely obsolete in everyday American English" and "the protective leather gear of th[e] pre-Kevlar era was notoriously ineffective against bullets, meaning civilians did not typically wear such body protection either." This argument runs headlong into the definitions adopted by Heller, nevertheless indicating that the term "arms"—as it was defined in the Founding Era—included defensive body armor that (according to the State) was supposedly rarely utilized in 1791.
Body armor may be used more today than Defendants' understanding of its use in 1791. But it strains credulity to say that an arm that was rarely used during the Founding Era—yet still protected by the Second Amendment per Heller—is no longer protected despite being much more common among Americans today.
Moreover, this conclusion is consistent with Heller's clear statement that 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." While body armor may not have been in common use at the founding—although the commonly understood definition of "arms" included body armor—neither were other arms commonly used for self-defense, such as resolvers, semiautomatic pistols, and stun guns. See Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) (Alito, J., concurring). The defensive body armor available today is "no more exempt from the Second Amendment's protections, simply because [it was] unknown to the First Congress, than electronic communications are exempt from the First Amendment, or electronic imaging devices are exempt from the Fourth Amendment." …
Even if the definitions put forth by the Supreme Court in Heller are dicta, this Court has an "obligation to accord great deference to Supreme Court dicta," absent a change in the legal landscape. Defendants have not suggested—nor can they—that a change in the legal landscape exists that would require this Court to ignore how Heller defined the term "arms." …
Because Plaintiffs have demonstrated that body armor is an "arm" protected by the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the State to justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of arms regulation. The State fails to do so….
The State argues that there exists a "centuries-long historical tradition" demonstrating that, "when body armor has been in use, it has been subject to government regulation." Yet, the State is unable to identify a single regulation on body armor post-ratification…. The State contends that its body armor ban is consistent with "English monarchs and parliaments" who "regularly issued laws forbidding or restricting the wearing of armor …." Not only is this analogy irrelevant to the regulation of arms in the United States, but it also ignores the historical reason the right to keep and bear arms is "understood to be an individual right protecting against public and private violence." Accordingly, the Court interprets the English history put forth by the State in light of these principles and articulates that it is not "sufficiently probative" to defend New York's body armor ban….
The State points to the Statute of Northampton for support for its position that there is a long-standing tradition of restricting who can purchase body armor. The law prohibited anyone to "go, nor ride armed by night, nor by day, in fairs markets, nor in the presence of the justices or other ministers, nor in no part elsewhere, upon pain to forfeit their armor to the King and their bodies to prison, at the king's pleasure." Notwithstanding the ink that continues to be spilled over this law, the Supreme Court has stated that "the Statute of Northampton—at least as it was understood during the Middle Ages—has little bearing on the Second Amendment adopted in 1791." N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen (2022)….
The State's analogy to the Statute of Northampton is an attempt to justify its body armor ban by speculating that individuals only wear body armor to terrify the public. Yet, this ignores the reality put forth by Plaintiffs, that the public is more likely to reach for body armor to protect themselves from terrifying circumstances. In Rahimi, the Supreme Court concluded that "[a]n individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment." Here, however, the State is suggesting that a merely broad-based suspicion over the population at large is sufficient to justify a universal ban on the sale and purchase of a specific type of arm. And to the extent that the State analogizes this to prohibiting criminals from purchasing body armor, other statutes already criminalize the use of body armor while committing violent crimes. The State's categorical prohibition of a specific type of arm to law-abiding citizens at large, is untethered from any historical tradition-including the Statute of Northampton….
Nicolas J. Rotsko (Fluet) represents plaintiffs.
The post Body Armor Ban Struck Down by N.Y. Federal Court appeared first on Reason Magazine.
As Washington leans on Ukraine to make a deal with Russia amid its diesel agreement ahead of the US elections, its European partners are meeting to keep it armed against deadly weapons.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he met Kongsberg CEO Eirik Lie and Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik in Oslo on 21 October to discuss more NASAMS air defenses, a day after meeting US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in the same city.
Washington has spent the past two weeks easing pressure on Russia and leaning on Kyiv, with a diesel deal, throttled Starlink, and talk of cutting intelligence, while Ukraine’s European partners move in the other direction. Russia pounds Ukrainian cities almost nightly, and the Norwegian-made NASAMS is one of the systems holding that barrage off critical infrastructure.
Kongsberg opened an office in Ukraine in 2025. Its NASAMS uses the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile built by the US defense giant RTX, the same firm behind the Patriot launchers that are Ukraine’s only means of downing Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The same missile is also used in F-16s.
“They effectively protect our people and critical infrastructure from Russian missile and drone attacks virtually every day,” Zelenskyy said.
He added that Ukraine is counting on additional defense support packages next month.
The visit also advanced a joint missile-defense project. Norway is actively involved in FREYJA, a European anti-ballistic missile program that Ukraine is helping to build.
“There are already first results in creating individual elements of the system. Today we determined where we can and must speed up to reach testing by the end of this year,” Zelenskyy said.
FREYJA now draws in 10 countries and is built around an interceptor missile designed to stop ballistic threats, a capability Europe largely lacks against Russia’s fastest weapons.
Zelenskyy also raised satellite communications amid the scandal over speed limitations on Elon Musk’s military Starlink service that disrupted a series of front-line missions.
“We discussed in detail the start of work on new satellite-communication capabilities for our soldiers,” the president said, adding that Kyiv would bring in partners able to support them.
The push comes after SpaceX throttled the StarShield military package Ukrainian drones use. Ukraine’s 7th Air Assault Corps said the connection began dropping as drones moved at speed, negatively affecting their missions.
Intercepting a jet-powered Geran can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4 million depending on the weapon used. Cheap interceptor drones are the only option that keeps air defense affordable, the foundation of Ukrainian top war volunteer Serhii Sternenko said on Telegram.
Russia’s jet Gerans now carry every characteristic of a small cruise missile, and Russians keep raising their speed in answer to each Ukrainian countermeasure. Former commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has framed the shift bluntly: an expensive Cold War missile has become a cheap weapon fired in bulk, and the drone is now “a missile in all but name,” affordable to any side, not only wealthy countries.
Sternenko heads a charitable foundation that has purchased 291,502 FPV drones, which have helped Ukraine’s military down more than 12,954 aerial targets. Also, has advised the team of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
The foundation laid out the price of each method:
No single tool is enough, the foundation stresses. Downing jet Gerans still needs aircraft, small aviation and missile systems together, but it is the interceptors that make the defense affordable, taking out the cheaper Shaheds and saving costly missiles for targets nothing else can reach.
The foundation says it has found a way to counter drones that already match small cruise missiles, working with Ukrainian manufacturers, without disclosing details. The method is far cheaper than other ways of downing jet Gerans and significantly strengthens air defense, it says, as part of a wider Ukrainian push to field interceptor drones fast enough to catch Russia’s fastest weapons.
The commander of an interceptor battalion in Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps said his unit destroyed several thousand Russian aerial targets during Operation Vivaldi, ArmyInform, the Defense Ministry’s news agency, reported on 21 October.
Operation Vivaldi is a Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast, where the 3rd Army Corps has reported liberating settlements. In its third phase, Ukrainian forces reclaimed five settlements and expanded their gains to 176 square kilometers. Strikes on Russian logistics and electronic warfare likely neutralized Russia’s drone defenses before Ukraine sent in armor, the Institute for the Study of War assessed.
The commander, who uses the callsign “Betsyk,” leads the interceptor battalion of the 1030th Anti-Aircraft Missile-Artillery Regiment “Aquila,” part of the 3rd Army Corps. He said Russian forces deployed large numbers of reconnaissance drones to locate Ukrainian positions after the corps began advancing.
Betsyk named Zala, Orlan, Supercam, Merlin, and Knyaz Veshchiy Oleg among the reconnaissance drones used by Russian forces.
Russia also brought in reinforcements and units operating strike drones, including first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters, Molniya fixed-wing FPV drones, and Lancet crews, he said. At one stage, Russian forces deployed crews from their Rubicon drone unit to disrupt the advance, but the move did not change the situation.
Betsyk said his battalion’s work deprived Russian forces of the ability to strike Ukrainian troops and track their movements.
The regiment also works against Russian strike drones heading for targets behind the front line. Betsyk said interceptor crews had destroyed some jet-powered drones, but not in significant numbers.
The main difficulty is speed, he said. Interceptor drones need to reach 500–600 km/h to intercept Russian jet-powered attack drones, according to Betsyk.
For now, the regiment mainly uses conventional air-defense systems against these targets: self-propelled anti-aircraft systems, surface-to-air missile systems, and portable surface-to-air missile systems. Betsyk said these systems were historically designed to engage jet-powered targets.
He compared the current challenge with the early use of piston-powered Shaheds. Those drones initially posed a serious threat but later became easier for Ukrainian air defenses to counter. Russia has largely stopped using piston-powered Shaheds on most fronts since summer, he said, but continues to use piston-powered Gerbera drones, which are relatively cheap and can partly exhaust Ukrainian air defenses. The main drones Russian forces use now are jet-powered Shaheds, he said.
Betsyk expects Russian forces to adapt if Ukraine fields effective interceptors against jet-powered drones. They will seek ways to evade the interceptors, increase speed, improve navigation, and change their tactics, he said. However, he added that the battalion had not observed a major evolution so far and did not expect the drones’ speed to double.
Separately, 3rd Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi said Ukrainian forces retook 277 square kilometers and 16 settlements during Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Biletskyi also said Russian losses exceeded 8,000 personnel, according to ArmyInform. These figures are Ukrainian claims and have not been independently verified.
In late September, China and Laos opened a Beijing-funded training and support center and an aviation academy at Ban Keun airport, about 50 kilometers north of Vientiane. China’s Ministry of National Defense says the facility will train Lao Air Force pilots and is “not directed against any third party.” Even so, much of the commentary […]
The post Cambodia and Laos are not pawns in a Chinese encirclement appeared first on Asia Times.
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