Federal Judge Rejects NRA's Discrimination Claims in 'Murder Insurance' Case
The National Rifle Association’s legal case against the state of New York suffered a substantial blow on Friday, as a federal judge rejected claims that state officials singled out the NRA for enforcement when it blocked the sale of what critics call “murder insurance.”
The NRA sued the state of New York last year, alleging that it had been the victim of a “political vendetta” by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The state Department of Financial Services had earlier shut down an NRA-branded insurance product called “Carry Guard,” which covered holders against the financial consequences of using a gun. The policies promised to pay for the legal fees of, and civil judgments against, gun owners who fired their weapons against other people.
In the ruling — embedded below — U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy dismissed claims that the NRA and its insurance partners had been unfairly targeted for a crackdown by Cuomo and Maria T. Vullo, who runs the Department of Financial Services, New York’s insurance regulatory agency.
Judge McAvoy found that the NRA had not proven its claims of “selective enforcement” of state insurance law in an action the gun group had blasted as “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, discriminatory, and undertaken in bad faith.” While the NRA did uncover evidence of other illicit actors in the insurance market who had gone unpunished by regulators, McAvoy ruled that the rifle association had not proven that either Cuomo or Vullo “were aware of similar violations” by these companies “yet failed to take comparable action against them.” A spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is defending the state in court, called the ruling “an important victory for New Yorkers.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/judge-tosses-nra-complaints-enforcement-834774/
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