Police in New York want the legal ability to seize firearms during a domestic violence call – even if no arrests were made. However, instead of going through normal legal channels and obtaining a search warrant or court order, police just want the legal ability to take the guns on their own.
New York State lawmakers plan to reintroduce a bill during the next legislative session that will go farther than the state’s Safe Homes Act of 2020, which allows officers to seize firearms found during a consensual search when police respond to a domestic dispute.
New York State Senator Peter Harckham, a Democrat from Westchester County, has sponsored a bill that would “mandate” officers to confiscate all firearms left out in the open during a domestic call.
“This is not gun control, this is gun safety; and this is domestic safety,” the senator told Spectrum News. “This is keeping the victims of domestic violence alive. We had two fatalities through domestic violence and firearms in my district in the last month. This is very real. This is very deadly and this is not a permanent seizure.”
Senator Harckham’s bill would allow police to keep the seized weapons for five days – most likely to seek restraining orders or other legal options – before returning them to their rightful owners. Also, police would likely extend this five-day time limit as needed.
Tom King, president of New York State’s Rifle & Pistol Association, balked loudly about the new bill.
“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” King told the reporters. “That means a search warrant or an order from a judge to confiscate the firearms, and they’re doing this without that.”
King pointed out the more than 100 New Yorkers who had firearms seized under the state’s newly expanded red-flag law. This group contacted King’s nonprofit seeking help getting their guns back. Some have already paid more than $10,000 in legal expenses, King said.
Takeaways
The main problem with the new bill is that it offers police yet another illegal mechanism to seize someone’s guns.
Our federal law does not allow law enforcement to go traipsing through someone’s home looking for firearms that were never used in a crime, which they will then seize for no evidentiary value.
These types of laws are passed solely for one reason – harassment. They want to harass gun owners. They want gun owners temporarily disarmed and then forced to make several trips to the police station to get their property returned, at great cost, too. Don’t forget that.
Today, gun owners have fewer rights in places like New York than they do in free states. This new bill will only make it worse.
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About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
And yet another reason that I will never, ever move back to the “Empire State”. Its governors seem to have or eventually develop an Emperor Complex. Again with the lack of common sense or logical thinking. I fail to understand how removing the firearm is removing the threat. Did the firearm commit the reported domestic violence? Basic logic says that if you’re being called on a report of domestic violence, the violent actor is the threat, not some inanimate object. So you remove the firearm(s), but what about the baseball bats, knives, hammers, screwdrivers, or any other inanimate object in… Read more »
So how many Constitutional rights does this violate?
Hands and feet are by far the weapons of choice of domestic abusers.
First: If ya wanna take my stuff…get a warrant. 4th Amendment = “Supreme Law of the Land” Second: What prevents the officers from getting a warrant to seize property? Instead of concentrating on the tool, why not improve the warrant process? Third: The two cases the Senator cites – how would this new law have prevented them? Fourth: If the citizen, who is not even CHARGED with a crime, cannot be trusted with a gun, how can they be trusted to be “loose on the street”? How can the “abuser” be trusted with string, knives, trucks, pressure cookers, pipes, and… Read more »
“Briefly seize” isn’t that like a “temporary tax”?
“Police in New York want”…a lot of Government Bureacrat Employees want a lot of unconstitutional things to be done against The People. New York State Senator Peter Harckham running some rackets and need “Police Protection” or something? What is Harckham doing these favors of taking the Citizens Property for the Police for? He knows they are not going to return the property. Every year when the Controller does the yearly audit of the Police Property Section there are hundreds of rifles and handguns missing. He knows the Police in the Property Section just want a larger selection of guns to… Read more »
there is no “briefly” when police seize something. it is gone fu_king forever.
make “them” pry your gun from your cold dead fingers after taking a few with you.
Exactly, the Police lie all of the time. They are trained to lie to get you. They will never return them without an expensive time consuming lawsuit. But before the lawsuit your attorney will want to demonstrate you ‘danced and jump thru all the hoops” that each liar-constitutional-breaker cop instructed you to do lying that then you will get your guns backs.
Harckham, you idiot POS, the deaths in your district are your fault for not removing the domestic aggressor. Take the defensive tools, leave behind the aggressor and maybe a parchment “protection order” and all’s good. You and your type sicken me, you are a pox on society.
and there you have it. ‘…for only 5 days…’ renewable as needed. it’s new york – your stuff? forgeddabout’it, they’ll sell it and keep the money. i bet there aren’t more than 2 or 3 women in all of new york who will use this to ‘get back at’ their ex.
So the NYPD doesn’t want the Constitution to apply to them. Sounds about right for New York. Just another in my long list of reasons to never go the New York.
Princes had, so to speak, turned violence into a physical thing but our democratic republics have made it into something as intellectual as the human will it intends to restrict. Under the absolute government of one man, despotism, in order to attach the spirit, crudely struck the body and the spirit escaped free of the blows rising glorious above it. But in democratic republics tyranny does not behave in that manner.; it leaves the body alone and goes straight to the spirit. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free… Read more »
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents… Read more »
Mr. Williams; Thank you for this article and the work you do for the SAF. The thought comes to mind is that it would be interesting if, when legislators begin to introduce these sorts of unconstitutional laws, the SAF could in some legal way, notify all the voting involved legislators that the law is prima facia unconstitutional as proposed. And furthermore, the SAF is notifying them of such in advance that if passed the SAF will take actions in the courts to have the law so deemed. Finally, when reversed the SAF will pursue them individually and hold each one… Read more »
You’ll get this back at the end of the semester! More than likely, never.
This is the logical progression of red flag laws and illustrates the “slippery slope” that progressives use to deny us our rights.
Due process? Fourth amendment rights? these totalitarians absolutely hate our rights