Outrage at NY State Senate:
Jan. 15th, 2013 04:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
milktreeWarning: Rant about the insanity of NY's senate:
This is the only time I'll ever quote Ayn Rand, I promise:
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
For those of you who don't know, I'm a gun owner, I compete in sports that use guns, and I teach gun safety and marksmanship. I'm certified to teach NRA Basic Pistol, which is one of the courses approved by the MA State Police to fulfill the training/safety/education requirement necessary for a MA gun license. Part of the training requirement is a section on law, both MA and Federal. I spent a fair amount of time learning about this stuff, so this isn't just uninformed knee-jerk reactionary outrage. It's well informed, well thought out, knowledgeable outrage. Emphasis on "outrage".
I'm reading the "Gun Confiscation and Lawful Gun Owner Imprisonment Act" just passed by the NY State Senate and I'm absolutely baffled how any of those clowns could possibly think what they're proposing will have *any* positive effect on public safety, or how they could honestly think we're *so* stupid as to believe them when they say it.
One of the most offensive things about it is what Senate Republican
leader Dean Skelos said,
"It is well-balanced, it protects the Second Amendment, and there is no confiscation of weapons, which was at one time being considered."
Well balanced? What exactly was the balance? I see exactly one good thing in the bill, the names and addresses of gun owners will no longer be public record. But that's not a balance of anything, that's good for *everyone*.
What it does do:
- confiscates lots of currently legal magazines; any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, even pre '94 ones, must be turned in to authorities or sold out of state. All remaining magazines that hold eight or more rounds must be modified to only hold seven. This will destroy any gun competition in the state, since they *all* use 10 round magazines. Plus it'll make it nearly impossible to find "NY compliant" new magazines. How long before "common sporting use" in NY becomes "nothing", and a complete ban seems "reasonable"
- requires (allows?) mental health workers to report any patients that they deem "dangerous" to the state's department of criminal justice, branding that person as a "prohibited person" forever. The lesson is: don't get help if you're feeling blue, you might lose your rights; all it takes is an anti-gun shrink.
- current "assault weapons" must be registered with the state, and the definition will be changed from two "icky evil scary looking feature" to just one. That makes sense if anyone, at all, ever, was killed in a drive by bayoneting, or by a collapsible stock, or by a flash hider, or by a grenade launcher, or by a grip that's comfortable. (pistol grip)
- requires all private sales to go through an FFL, which means that every transaction will cost the seller $35 (whatever the FFL charges) but can't charge the buyer more than $10 for it. Do the people who write this shit realize how stupid that is? Why did they even mention the $10 part?
- background checks on all ammunition sales, including private sales. It would be illegal to sell an extra box of ammo to a guy at the range. "large" purchases of ammunition (no definition) would be tracked by the state. Do they realize that a reasonably active shooter can easily run through 12,000 rounds in a year, and that a very active competitive shooter can go through more than twice that?
Just for fun, read the section on ammunition sales in the actual bill, search for
S 400.03 SELLERS OF AMMUNITION.
It's insane, not just because it'll have zero effect on public safety, but because it's completely unworkable. It's clearly intended to make legally owning a gun so burdensome that people won't.
There is nothing balanced about this bill. Nothing. Unless you consider a burglar saying , "at least I didn't kill you" after ransacking your house and stealing your stuff, as "balanced".
Not a single thing in this bill will make anyone safer. Every single part of the "assault weapons" language does nothing but ban cosmetic features. That's not hyperbole. Not a single "evil feature" listed makes a gun more deadly. Imagine if red cars or ones with sunroofs became illegal with the justification that it'll stop drunk driving. It is exactly that stupid. Making ammunition sales burdensome does nothing, even the most heavily armed soldier only carries a few hundred rounds with him, and that's a small purchase of ammunition, they come in 50 or 100 rounds boxes. Requiring mental health providers to report dangerous patients will have the effect of driving people away from counseling they probably should get. The only part that might make any sense at all is the magazine limit, except that people who are willing to kill people don't particularly care about such a thing, and there's *millions* of regular/full capacity magazines out there. 18 years after the Federal AWB magazine capacity limit went into effect we still haven't run out of pre '94 full capacity magazines, they're trivially easy to get.
If there was any doubt that each little bit of incremental "reasonable", "common sense", "gun control" was anything other than just another step toward a total ban and confiscation of all guns you'd have to be willfully blind to not see that doubt vanish in a puff of insane screaming politicians.
Here's the bill in its entirety:
http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S2230-2013
This is the only time I'll ever quote Ayn Rand, I promise:
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
For those of you who don't know, I'm a gun owner, I compete in sports that use guns, and I teach gun safety and marksmanship. I'm certified to teach NRA Basic Pistol, which is one of the courses approved by the MA State Police to fulfill the training/safety/education requirement necessary for a MA gun license. Part of the training requirement is a section on law, both MA and Federal. I spent a fair amount of time learning about this stuff, so this isn't just uninformed knee-jerk reactionary outrage. It's well informed, well thought out, knowledgeable outrage. Emphasis on "outrage".
I'm reading the "Gun Confiscation and Lawful Gun Owner Imprisonment Act" just passed by the NY State Senate and I'm absolutely baffled how any of those clowns could possibly think what they're proposing will have *any* positive effect on public safety, or how they could honestly think we're *so* stupid as to believe them when they say it.
One of the most offensive things about it is what Senate Republican
leader Dean Skelos said,
"It is well-balanced, it protects the Second Amendment, and there is no confiscation of weapons, which was at one time being considered."
Well balanced? What exactly was the balance? I see exactly one good thing in the bill, the names and addresses of gun owners will no longer be public record. But that's not a balance of anything, that's good for *everyone*.
What it does do:
- confiscates lots of currently legal magazines; any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, even pre '94 ones, must be turned in to authorities or sold out of state. All remaining magazines that hold eight or more rounds must be modified to only hold seven. This will destroy any gun competition in the state, since they *all* use 10 round magazines. Plus it'll make it nearly impossible to find "NY compliant" new magazines. How long before "common sporting use" in NY becomes "nothing", and a complete ban seems "reasonable"
- requires (allows?) mental health workers to report any patients that they deem "dangerous" to the state's department of criminal justice, branding that person as a "prohibited person" forever. The lesson is: don't get help if you're feeling blue, you might lose your rights; all it takes is an anti-gun shrink.
- current "assault weapons" must be registered with the state, and the definition will be changed from two "icky evil scary looking feature" to just one. That makes sense if anyone, at all, ever, was killed in a drive by bayoneting, or by a collapsible stock, or by a flash hider, or by a grenade launcher, or by a grip that's comfortable. (pistol grip)
- requires all private sales to go through an FFL, which means that every transaction will cost the seller $35 (whatever the FFL charges) but can't charge the buyer more than $10 for it. Do the people who write this shit realize how stupid that is? Why did they even mention the $10 part?
- background checks on all ammunition sales, including private sales. It would be illegal to sell an extra box of ammo to a guy at the range. "large" purchases of ammunition (no definition) would be tracked by the state. Do they realize that a reasonably active shooter can easily run through 12,000 rounds in a year, and that a very active competitive shooter can go through more than twice that?
Just for fun, read the section on ammunition sales in the actual bill, search for
S 400.03 SELLERS OF AMMUNITION.
It's insane, not just because it'll have zero effect on public safety, but because it's completely unworkable. It's clearly intended to make legally owning a gun so burdensome that people won't.
There is nothing balanced about this bill. Nothing. Unless you consider a burglar saying , "at least I didn't kill you" after ransacking your house and stealing your stuff, as "balanced".
Not a single thing in this bill will make anyone safer. Every single part of the "assault weapons" language does nothing but ban cosmetic features. That's not hyperbole. Not a single "evil feature" listed makes a gun more deadly. Imagine if red cars or ones with sunroofs became illegal with the justification that it'll stop drunk driving. It is exactly that stupid. Making ammunition sales burdensome does nothing, even the most heavily armed soldier only carries a few hundred rounds with him, and that's a small purchase of ammunition, they come in 50 or 100 rounds boxes. Requiring mental health providers to report dangerous patients will have the effect of driving people away from counseling they probably should get. The only part that might make any sense at all is the magazine limit, except that people who are willing to kill people don't particularly care about such a thing, and there's *millions* of regular/full capacity magazines out there. 18 years after the Federal AWB magazine capacity limit went into effect we still haven't run out of pre '94 full capacity magazines, they're trivially easy to get.
If there was any doubt that each little bit of incremental "reasonable", "common sense", "gun control" was anything other than just another step toward a total ban and confiscation of all guns you'd have to be willfully blind to not see that doubt vanish in a puff of insane screaming politicians.
Here's the bill in its entirety:
http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S2230-2013
