Dumb Gun Laws In New York
By Budd Schroeder
New York –-(Ammoland.com)-From the perspective of a long time Second Amendment activist, I have been forced to conclude that New York has some of the most Draconian and dumb gun control laws.
Admittedly, there is competition from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
They also have some real dandies when it comes to ineffective and stupid laws involving firearms.
We have lived with the Sullivan Law which calls for the licensing of handgun owners and the registration of all handguns. I have spoken to several cops, district attorneys, lawyers and politicians and asked them how many gun crimes have been solved because the gun was registered. I have yet to hear a positive number from any of them.
Of course registration works. It worked wonderfully well for Adolph Hitler and several other dictators. It certainly destroyed any meaningful attempts to rescue the citizens from oppression. In fact, it is difficult to find any republic or democracy that was taken over by a dictator without first imposing gun control and registration. It sure made it convenient for those in power to disarm the citizens.
The term “gun control” can be misleading because it isn’t about controlling guns. It is about controlling people.
The laws affect only honest citizens because criminals don’t obey laws—that’s why they are called criminals. The ironic part of the registration law is that criminals can’t be charged with not registering a firearm. The Supreme Court said it would be a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights.
But, back to the dumb gun laws in New York. It takes a few months to a year in the Empire State to get a pistol permit. In Pennsylvania it takes less than an hour and this includes permits for non-residents. The difference in crime statistics involving guns between the states is insignificant.
The real objective of the anti-gun politicians is to make guns illegal for all but their favored few. That was the objective of Tim Sullivan who got the law passed. That’s why an upstate cop can’t legally carry a handgun in the Big Apple unless he is on duty and has the OK from the Police Commissioner.
That is a real crime stopper!
The big push for this legislative session is called microstamping which is an unproven technology that is supposed to create an imprint on fired cartridge cases. It has yet to be shown to work. It is a method (politicians say) to put a mark on the case that will link it to the gun that fired it.
There are a couple of big problems with this bill. First, it is obvious that the sponsors want to keep manufacturers from selling semi-automatic handguns in New York. We have not, so far, found any major manufacturer that is willing to invest on this technology for the whims of politicians in one state.
The second problem is that most guns used in crimes are stolen or bought off the street. An offshoot (pardon the pun) is that a criminal could pick up fired brass at a gun club range, commit a crime and use a brass catcher to avoid leaving his cases at a crime scene and drop the other cases. Wouldn’t that be confusing?
Most significant is the fact that a gun with the imprinting ability can be easily altered to defeat the microstamping. A file, power drill with a hone and some valve grinding compound could remove the identifying marking images. That would make the system totally ineffective.
Several years ago Governor Pataki instituted the CoBIS system which requires any semi-auto handgun sold at a gun store to provide a fired case and give to the State Police for their records. It is difficult to get an exact figure of the cost, but a good guess is around $20 million. In the decade it has been in existence, NOT ONE CRIME case has been solved with this program.
We had a report that one third of the cases sent to Albany for the data base had not yet been entered. What a waste of taxpayer’s money!
This would be a good time to contact legislators and the governor to tell them to forget about this microstamping bill and use their time doing something useful.
One of the biggest mistake we have made was to call our politition law makers The majority don’t know the first thing they are making laws about. Best example is the safe act. I would like to know how they can write laws that go against the constitution. And lawyers will argue that the state is right when they know the state is not right.
Hmm, in contrast, if this microstamping bill passes, I could definitely see the manufacturers who supply New York police departments (like Glock, H&K, S&W, etc) refusing to sell guns to them or the rest of the state; kind of like how Barrett wouldn't sell their M82s to Cali PDs once they banned .50 BMG firearms for civilians. That could definitely lead to a backlash from the police union and repealing of at least SOME stupid laws NY has.
Except corporate greed prevents companies from implementing a no sales policy. Spineless greed propels the government sales to these anti-gun states. In my opinion any state that bars citizens or ammo sales should be on a no sale list including their police departments. The voters went with stupid let them suffer.
As a resident of New York State, I know so well this bit of legislation is about controlling people. Time and time again too much money and time is wasted on worthless legislation. Let us make a law that "will make people safer" such as the cell phone laws that are so important to have that the fine for texting while driving is $150 plus court costs. The most important item this legislature has is the state budget, this year on time in the past eight years. They want to move the fiscal year start date to a later time… Read more »
We knew about all this already, yes ? …Now, what are We going to do about it ? …100,000 unarmed citizens strong to gather at City Hall will do the trick. Very simple and effective, yet so hard to do.
The usefulness or uselessness is irrelevant.
These laws are for harasment of gun owners
& to show supporters they are doing
something, useless or not. They don't
know about guns & they dont care.
I doubt they even want gun violence down.
This is about control, not guns!
I think the constitutionality of the Sullivan Act should be brought before SCOTUS. Not simply because it imposes onerous restrictions upon a right recognized by the U.S. Constitution; but because the Sullivan Act was promulgated and favored by a known criminal, who wanted it to squelch the competition.