About Alfred Terrille

Plaintiff Alfred “Al” Terrille is a U.S. citizen, resident of New York, and lives in Albany County.  He is a member of Gun Owners of America, Inc., and one of the individuals whose interests were represented by the organizational plaintiffs in Antonyuk v. Bruen.   

Plaintiff Terrille is a law-abiding person and currently possesses and has maintained an unrestricted New York carry permit since 1994.  He is eligible to possess and carry firearms in the State of New York, and has met all the qualifications for licensure, including having good moral character.  

He routinely carries his concealed handgun whenever he leaves home, but does “not carry in courthouses, schools, government buildings or other obvious “sensitive places” the Supreme Court has described, where the government often provides security in the form of armed guards and metal detectors.”  

Due to the CCIA, he is “now in jeopardy of arrest and prosecution as a felon, not to mention having [his] firearm seized and [his] permit revoked, and [his] constitutional rights forfeited, merely for carrying in the completely ordinary and entirely non-sensitive locations in which [he] previously carried [his] firearm.”    

Plaintiff Terrille is a grandfather to 5 grandchildren and it is his duty to protect his family, regardless of New York’s attempts to disarm him, subjugate him, and infringe on his Second Amendment rights.  Plaintiff Terrille routinely goes to the movies, both at movie theaters and drive-in locations within Albany County.  He does this repeatedly through the year, and will visit a theater at some point within the next 60 days.  He has previously carried concealed during such outings in “entirely ordinary and non-sensitive locations.”  Because movie theaters nor anything like them appear in the Supreme Court’s traditional sensitive location list, he intends to continue to carry his firearm when he goes to movie theaters with his grandchildren, in violation of the CCIA.   

Plaintiff Terrille also takes his grandchildren to Thatcher State Park in Albany County, where he hikes, uses the picnic areas, and the playground with his grandchildren.  He intends to carry his firearm when he visits this park in the future, something that occurs on a monthly basis.  

In the next 60 days, Plaintiff Terrille will visit the State of Tennessee.  He will take his firearm with him to Tennessee, as Tennessee respects the Second Amendment and allows him to carry there.  He intends to fly to Tennessee, departing from Albany International Airport, and intends to purchase a ticket in the “coming weeks, for travel within the next two months.”  The CCIA, however, criminalizes his taking of a firearm with him to the airport, even unloaded, locked, and properly declared in his checked baggage in compliance with federal regulations.  He cannot even store his firearm in his vehicle if he were not to take it with him in his checked luggage.  Since he intends to check his firearm in his luggage in accordance with TSA regulations, which requires declaring the firearm, he would be confessing to being in illegal possession of a firearm, opening himself to prosecution under the CCIA.    

However, even if he were traveling to Tennessee by car, it would take him approximately 2.5 to 3 hours to drive directly out of New York.  And during his trip, he would be prohibited from stopping to use the bathroom (even onto the parking lot of a gas station, rest stop, fast food restaurant) unless he has prior knowledge that the business posted a sign welcoming him to carry in the establishment.  Plaintiff Terrille’s freedom of travel is thus greatly impaired due to the CCIA.  

Plaintiff Terrille, within the next 60 days, will travel to Tennessee via airplane, and intends to bring his firearm in his checked luggage, in full compliance with 18 U.S.C. Section 926A and TSA regulations.   

Plaintiff Terrille also intends to carry in his local bank, and is unaware of any anti-gun bank policy, nor has the bank posted a sign stating firearms are not allowed.  However, there is no sign expressly stating he can carry.  He states this leaves him in an impossible situation where he must go into the bank, declare that he has a firearm, and ask if he has permission to carry.   Plaintiff Terrille intends to continue to carry his firearm unless the bank asks him to leave the firearm in his vehicle. 

Also, Plaintiff Terrille routinely carries his firearm in public, including at gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement stores, and others.  Many of these stores have corporate policies which permit firearm carry, including “Walmart, Walgreens and Target.”  He estimates he visits one or more of these retailers at least once a week.  The CCIA makes these businesses “restricted locations,” and bans him from carrying unless he has express consent of the owner or there is a sign allowing carry.  But few, if any, of these businesses post signs allowing carry, and asking for permission is impractical. To his knowledge, none of the retailers listed above has taken the affirmative step to opt out of the CCIA.  He states that it is impractical to disarm, approach the business, ask permission from a low-level employee who will need to ask a manager (or contact corporate), then wait for a response, and then re-arm himself, simply to pick up a few things at the store.  Additionally, even if he receives “permission” at one point in time, such policy could change at any time without notice, thus placing him at constant risk of committing a crime unawares.  Plaintiff Terrille intends to continue to carry his firearm in various businesses and establishments in Albany County, in violation of the CCIA’s restriction on “prohibited locations” that are not conspicuously posted with signage.  Plaintiff Terrille states that “[u]nless this Court strikes down that provision of the CCIA, simply going peaceably about [his] daily life will be a crime, pursuant to a statute which this Court has declared clearly unconstitutional.”  

Additionally, Plaintiff Terrille is planning to attend the upcoming NEACA Polish Community Center Gun Show on October 8-9, 2022 in Albany.  The Polish Community Center describes itself as a “conference center, banquet hall & wedding venue in Albany, NY.”    However, the CCIA bans firearms at “conference centers” and “banquet halls,” and the Community Center may not opt out of this ban and expressly allow firearms.  One of his main reasons for attending is to converse with fellow gun owners, which includes discussion about New York State’s tyrannical gun laws.  Plaintiff Terrille states that “a gun show is, almost by definition, a ‘gathering of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble’ ... and, thus, the CCIA appears to entirely ban gun shows.”  But he will attend the gun show anyway, and he intends to carry his firearm with him when he does, in violation of the CCIA, based on his understanding of this Court’s recent opinion and the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bruen. 

Plaintiff Terrille currently lives in an apartment complex in Albany County.  As such, he is a tenant and he has a landlord.  He understands that his apartment complex does not allow him to post “signage” outside his unit.  And it is not feasible for him to provide express consent to each person who visits his home, including deliverymen, repairmen, friends, or family.  So while the CCIA requires that he posts signage at his home declaring his home “pro-gun,” he cannot post this sign per the terms of his lease.  He is also not allowed to post signs outside his unit permitting visitors to park in common parking lots and walk on the common sidewalks when visiting his home, so he is unable to fully “opt-out” of the CCIA’s “taking [his] property and declaring it to be an anti-gun location, essentially converting [his] home from a ‘restricted location’ to a ‘sensitive location.’”   

Plaintiff Terrille also has attended pro-gun rallies in the past and, although he does not know of any planned rallies to occur in the future, if one were to be scheduled, he would attend it and carry his firearm, in violation of the CCIA. 

Plaintiff Terrille routinely goes out to eat with his grandkids at restaurants which are considered “sensitive locations” because they serve alcohol, even if he were not sitting in the bar area and not consuming alcohol. Because neither restaurants nor anything like them appears in the Supreme Court’s list of traditional sensitive places, he intends to continue to carry his firearm when he goes out to eat with his grandkids, “an event that will occur within the next 30 days.”   

Plaintiff Terrille states that he intends to engage in various acts which are constitutionally protected, but are now unlawful under the CCIA, and faces a credible threat of prosecution because he his specific intentions to break the law are now public through this filing.  He is aware that First Deputy Superintendent Steven Nigrelli of the New York State Police, has threatened people like him who violate the CCIA with a “zero tolerance” policy of arrest.  And because he intends to take a trip to Tennessee by airplane, he is almost guaranteed to “have a run-in with law enforcement when” he arrives at the “airport and declare to authorities that [he has] a firearm to check” with his luggage.  He anticipates that there is a “strong likelihood that [he] could be arrested and charged with a felony under the state’s announced ‘zero tolerance’ policy” when he brings his firearm to the airport to check for his upcoming flight.”