A federal magistrate has given the green light for a husband and wife in Nassau County, New York to continue their lawsuit against the county's police department seeking compensation after their gun licenses were suspended for allegedly violating an unwritten policy put in place by the department's Pistol License Section.
David and Christine Ganz have held New York pistol licenses since 2020, and have never run afoul of the law. After their daughter was admitted to a mental health facility in 2024, though, the couple landed on the radar of the Pistol License Section and police investigator David Cafarella. The young woman's college alerted the Nassau County police that she had been accused of drawing "disturbing pictures of mass shootings," and though officers had already spoken to her parents and had been informed that their daughter had no access to their firearms, Cafarella still suspended their licenses due to "a 'volatile mental situation' in Plaintiffs’ house where a household member was hospitalized for mental health treatment, and because the Plaintiffs failed to notify the PLS of the hospitalization."
Even though the Ganzs provided proof to police that their guns were secured in biometric safes and their daughter wasn't even living at their home, Cafarella refused to reinstate their permits until they gave him a “letter of no objection” from their daughter’s treating psychologist, which had to include her actual diagnosis, a statement that the psychologist was aware of her parents' pistol licenses, and that the psychologist had “no objection to firearms being in the house.”
Four months after turning over their firearms to an FFL for safekeeping, the Ganz's informed Cafarella that they were unable to comply with his demand. The following month, Cafarella recommended to a sergeant in the PLS that the Ganzs sign an "acknowledgement of wrongdoing" as a condition of having their licenses reinstated. The couple refused to do, and another seven months went by before they were issued a “verbal admonishment” for failing to notify PLS of police contact within three business days. The Ganzs then had their licenses reinstated in November 2025... after they had initiated their lawsuit over the license suspension.
This is the second case involving the Nassau County PD that we've covered in as many months here at Bearing Arms, and the prior case had a direct impact on the outcome of the Ganz case. Dennis and Lisa Wysocki sued NCPD after their licenses were suspended because their daughter had expressed thoughts of depression and harming herself with a rope. Though doctors cleared her, the police refused to reinstate their licenses, and for more than three years the Wysockis fought to have their licenses restored and their firearms returned.
There is no written policy in the NCPD handbook for licensees that requires license holders to do things like submit a letter from their child's mental-health specialist or provide information about their mental health history. The judge overseeing the Wysocki case held that the criteria for reinstating the plaintiffs’ licenses "did not stem from any law or policy, but from the defendants’ own determination which was unsupported by any historical analogue."
The judge overseeing the Ganzs' lawsuit agreed.
Defendants cannot automatically suspend a license when it is based on a cohabitant’s existence of a volatile situation and not that of the licensee. There is no historical analogue. Cafarella himself testified that he did not believe that Plaintiffs were dangerous people, nor did he find that they were threats to public safety. Furthermore, Cafarella found that Plaintiffs’ weapons were securely stored.
The judge did rule that Cafarella has qualified immunity for his actions, and left in place some of the ridiculous requirements that are written policy in Nassau County, including the demand that license holders inform the police department when a licensee or a member of the licensee's household receives any mental health treatment. Still, U.S. Magistrate Judge James M. Wicks held that David and Christine Ganz can pursue their claims of damage, and a trial date has been set for March, 2027.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon has been looking for places where there is a pattern and practice of violating the Second Amendment, and I'd say the Nassau County Police Department's Pistol License Section fits the bill. We now have at least two couples who had their ability to own a firearm suspended for reasons that are completely lacking historical analogues (and common sense). The PLS apparently allows for these abuses on a case-by-case basis through an unwritten policy, and though it's now been slapped on the wrist twice by the federal courts, there's nothing stopping the PLS from continuing these practices in the future.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division already has a lot on its plate, but I hope they can find room to sue the Nassau County PD over these unconscionable and unconstitutional abuses of our right to keep and bear arms. New York's licensing laws are bad enough, but the practices and unwritten policies in Nassau County take the state's infringement to a whole new level.
