First off, doesn’t any admission that a failure to exempt police officers from magazine size restrictions is a problem with the hurried-through anti-gun legislation (because, to quote one state senator, “you can’t give more ammo to the criminals”) suggest that the law itself is intended to make sure that only law-abiding citizens have less cartridge capacity in their firearms than do criminals? And given that the police are second-responders (the individual being the first responder) — and are under no legal obligation to protect you — isn’t this law essentially a means to creating a stratified populace in which police and criminals are both better armed than law-abiding citizens exercising their right to bear arms under the second amendment?
That seems troubling to me, both on a personal and Constitutional level. If we take into account that one of the main concerns of the second amendment was to balance State power, why is it permissible under the Constitution to give special exemptions to those who use force in the service of the State?
Further, why is the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association in NY pushing for an exemption on the “high cap” ban for both active police and retired officers. Or as I like to call them, civilians, who though once active duty police, no longer are?
It really does seem to me that in every bastion of progressivism, the populace is being balkanized — and individual liberty is being replaced by government beneficence toward its clients or enablers.
That’s not a constitutional republic. That’s liberal fascism.
it’s not a good idea for retired piggy piggy cop thugs to have a large amount of firepower available when they find out NY can’t afford to pay their piggy piggy pensions I don’t think
– As soon as there are a few “incidents” directly tracable to some aspect of this pile of garbage legislation the cannoe’s will be in full reverse, with so many amendments and set-asides etc, it won’t mean anything. But they’ll look like they’re “doing something” to keep the useful idiots quiet.
Car 54, where are you?
The fact that they forgot to exclude law enforcement is definitely a sign that they rushed it. Maybe they should pass a law that any law that needs to be amended within 72 hours of being signed into law just gets revoked, and they start over.
And the retired police officer exception is a clue that they (at least the PBA) thinks they are more equal than others.
Damn it, 1984 and Animal Farm were meant to be warnings, not instruction manuals!
Somebody should sneak through an amendment changing the law to read that civilians are entitled to the same kinds of arms as the police, and the police are limited to using the same kinds or arms to which civilians are restricted.
When did the police stop being civilians?
The police are extra-special civilians. They deserve more consideration than the rest of us.
Time was deliberation meant carefully weighing in a balance.
Today, with our better wisdom and better understanding of our situation, deliberation means do something hastily and poorly, only do something visible, little matter what it may be.
Toss that fucking balance in the garbage with the dead white guys, and you’ll be credited up-to-date, hip, fully modern, a now sort of guy. And be paid accordingly.
The 7 bullet magazine thing might actually be an unconstitutional back-door attempt to ban handguns
And given that the police are second-responders (the individual being the first responder)
I encourage everybody to keep hammering away on this point. We need to crush the default assumption that nobody can do anything until the authorities arrive. It isn’t even a difficult argument to make, since we have recent developments that provide a perfect analogy.
To wit: everywhere you go now, from airports to schools to shopping malls, you see little “AED” placards marking where the automated external defibrillator is located. This is because the Powers That Be finally realized that when somebody is having a heart attack, the first responders are the people in the immediate vicinity, and those people should have the tools they need to deal with the situation.
If the Powers That Be were serious, there would be a firearms locker next to every AED. Because if some psycho starts shooting up a school or a movie theater or a shopping mall, well, that’s a serious thing. Serious as a heart attack. Fortunately, there’s a simple, cheap, and effective alternative to keeping firearms lockers within easy reach in public areas.
A firearm is no different from an AED. You hope you never need to use either one, but you should know how both tools work, and be ready to use them when required. And if you’re ever in a situation where you need one and don’t have one at hand, well, congratulations — you’ve been turned from a first responder into a bystander (or victim).
The US is full of this nonsense. I saw it in family law, where prior right was consistently trumped by subsequent law or even recent local policy.
The law is an ass and nobody much gives a shit. Until we get serious about carving phonebook sized hunks of contemporary law off the books, we’re screwed. Of course there’s always the brilliant tactic of passing new laws to reform old laws that violated prior fundamental rights, but that kind of feedback looping is madness.
Which explains its popularity.
Why is it so difficult to repeal stuff that’s so utterly wrongheaded? Oh right, it’s teh madness.
Indeed. We are the law.
For example, what Dana Loesch could have said to Piers Morgan, fool:
“This issue of gun control is simply not debatable on perceived merits. I am sovereign under original, fundamental, structural American constitutional contract and whereby I and each of my countrymen shall direct national security through sound, representative governance and enact our individual and collective personal security through force of individual law enforcement in our homes, back yards, streets, places of business, town squares, and institutions.
“I shall employ the ability to protect myself by exercising my right to protect myself. That principle may be alien to a Queen’s serf and/or the momentary, subjective, partisan British law, but it is utterly foundational for free man on this side of, as you put it, the Pond.
“Which liberty you, Morgan, are incapable of cherishing, and which subservience evidently you revel in, that and your factual ignorance and your general boorishness and your sorry little teevee program, perpetually at the bottom of the ratings race.
“Which is to say fuck of back to Jolly Old, you mendacious British retread, you and your pot-boiler, Oprah-grade emotionalism. This is not your land and I shall not waste my time evaluating your terms.”
Oh. Visigothery and like that. Sorry.
Phil Dick said it best:
“If you’re not cop, you’re little people.”
Greetings:
I grew up in the Bronx of the ’50s and ’60s. Back then, legislation known as the Sullivan law made it virtually impossible for citizens to get pistol permits unless they had a cash business, were politically connected, or were retired cops. So, there’s a good bit of tradition here.
Oh, yeah, one had to go to the police to apply for a permit. So, maybe it’s just a protecting the rice bowl kind of thing. And the rice bowlées.
This law will result in some oddly designed weapons…which WILL work around its limits.
Since when is a God given right subject to a “need”? The whole point of the 2nd amendment is to be a final check on tyranny. For that to be possible, citizens must armed at least as well as the police if not the standing army.
Seven rounds of .75 caliber goodness, PurpAv.
Please insert a “be” where appropriate.
A little legal weirdness in the NY law.
If you have a ten round magazine that was manufactured after 9/13/94 and before this law went into effect it is legal to possess and use as long as you never put more than 7 rounds into it.
Missing a line from that pdf.
After “amm” -unition,_or_(c)_is_obtained_after_the_effective_date_of_the_chapter_of__the
I make no claim to know, but would guess that the limitation on rounds to 7 will be a focal point of the first legal challenges to the Constitutionality of the moronic NY law right from the jump. They certainly offer a simple means to force the government of NY’s hand.
Do you really need to ask that question?
Pretty much what JHoward said about the law.
Much of our government is in open rebellion against the limits placed upon them, and the majority of voters couldn’t articulate that even if they were vaguely aware of it.
And that’s not an accident, either.
[…] awarded to Jeff Goldstein for seeing through the Leftist fog, unlike so many of our brethren on the Right [this is worth quoting in […]
Seven rounds of .75 caliber goodness, PurpAv.
That won’t do it. Anything over .50 that’s not a shotgun is considered a “destructive device” and classified as a NFA weapon.
-Jeff: I hope you don’t mind, but I quoted you in full in the post over at my joint – I thought it was best rest as a whole.
-Quoted Scott and Squid in the post, as well.
As I wrote over at TCOTS, picking up on one of Squid’s points:
When the people of The United States in their local communities and in the Several States began allowing for the creation of police departments, they never relinquished their right to self-defense or their right to exercise policing powers. They merely delegated the day-to-day business of it to an organized [training came later in the 19th Century] group run by a government entity, much as they had delegated protecting our borders and other national security matters to the government. This creation of police departments was done because it freed-up individuals to concentrate on other concerns, such as earning a living, making one’s lot in life better, taking care of one’s family needs. We never gave up our power to police. We never made ourselves subjects to governmental beneficence. Sovereignty rests only with the people of The United States.
Since when is a God given right subject to a “need”?
Did Rosa Parks “need” to sit at the front of the bus? It’s not like she didn’t get where she was going while riding in the back.
Rosa Parks was tired and she just wanted to sit down
awl her life she had to fight
http://curmudgeonlyskeptical.blogspot.com/2013/01/waxman-on-guns.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A CurmudgeonlySkeptical %28Curmudgeonly %26 Skeptical%C2%B2%29
(warning: nasal porn at link.)
You know what makes me nervous? Fascists like Democrat Congressman Henry A. Waxman (California).
The dude looks and acts like a B-list comic book villain.
Jeff’s got it!
Remember everyone, the first political impulse Hillary Clinton had after 9-11 was to genuflect to NY’s “first responders.” This fact, alone, ought to give patriots pause.
Also, remember Tom Ridge’s mild recommendations for citizens to compile their own “response kit” after 9-11?
The media had a field-day ripping the list apart – not because duct-tape isn’t useful to homeowners in the event of a poison-gas attack, but because the media/Left complex hates them some aware, self-reliant citizen-responders. The Dem’s cannot unionize ununiformed, uncertified, free-born citizens like they can the ones wearing the crisp outfits slaving for the credentials and the union pensions in the chutes.
The Left has made a killing wielding around its crafted labels like “choice,” “affordable care,” and “kinetic action.” Well, “first responder” has been a boon for them, too, both in terms of recruitment (who doesn’t want to be “first”) and in terms of playing to the lazy and infirm among us who want others to “respond” to our emergencies FOR ’em.
Let’s get back to calling them what they are, “fire-fighters” and “policemen,” and back to empowering our citizens to “respond.” Whaddya say?
Guys,
I hired a retired cop cum shed-building contractor, and one month later I regretted it Big Time! They never retire, per se.
I hired him mainly because he had a Purple Heart Award sticker on the back of his Chevy. It came from his service in Vietnam. But, this too, came back and bit me when I tried to get him off the job.
Long story short: there’s not a framing company in Colorado, Arizona or Cali that doesn’t have a star-cutter or nailer on-crew who won’t occasionally puff a doob at lunch in his car. It’s “no-harm, no-foul” situation on most job sites, so long as the job’s done right!
Well, that is until another sub gets the idea his job is to police the owner’s job-site. Which is what this guy did (anonymous hot-line calls, swat-team of eight shows up to find nothing, guy cops a BAD-attitude with me). Eventually I finagled him off the job, but to this day I still hear slanders around town about how I “fired” a Vietnam Vet, and “Hate” ‘vets,’ and police.
All bullsh_t, of course, but that’s the price you pay when you terminate one of these. I resolved then and there that, when I hire, if a guy touts his military or police service up front (as opposed to those who might also have served, BUT do not tout their service), I’ll not hire them!
Crazy how the decision that is inverse from the culturally expected decision is the RIGHT one for the freeman to take, huh? I’d like to feel free to hire ex-servicemen who are proud of their civil service, but the potential for political or social jeopardy that their hire presents me in free-wheeling economies like rural Arizona’s or Colorado’s is just too great.
Get the unions out of the soup, and maybe I’ll sample the broth again. ‘Till then, I’ll steer clear of the kitchen!
Because Caesar must keep the Praetorian Guard happy, lest they choose a new Caesar.
Angie’s List. Because bumper stickers aren’t always excellent recommends for workmanship or judges of character (unless there’s a plethora of ’em on a given vehicle, then you can safely conclude the driver is a nutcase).
Whenever the next high profile shooting happens, and there will be one as it is the press that determines what is high profile, the Democrats, like Waxman, Biden, and Obama will loudly proclaim that if only those obstructionists in the legislature had passed what we thoughtful, compassionate and intelligent leaders wanted passed these victims would not have died.
It won’t be true but that will not matter one tiddle or jot. It only needs to be emotionally appealing and something which their Low info folks will swallow whole without gagging. His old/new propaganda outfit will apply the the oil to slide it down. They will not stop until they have the “world as it should be.” BAMN. We have yet to see how low they will go.
Serr8d,
I was new in the community, and stupidly thought that, if I hired local society’s own paragons of virture on my job, the magnanimous gesture would accrue to my “rep” around town.
Boy, was I wrong! I wound up gettin’ shaken down to the tune of a high 4-figures just to clear my jobsite of the A-hole, and still had to suffer the barbed jabs ’round town about “hating” veterans or cops or whatev’.
Word to the wise: don’t hire the WRONG guy. I got it! I got it!
So they have changed “Organizing for America” to “Organizing for Action”.
Give them points for honesty I guess.
Didn’t Jonah Goldberg, whom we still love, even if we’ve lost just a bit of respect for, have something to say about fascists and their obsession with “action”?
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