As draconian, ill-advised, and possibly unconstitutional as the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (NY SAFE) anti-gun law was when it was hastily signed into law, it might have been far worse — this according to a New York legislator who fought against the bill.
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin has released documentation showing rejected Democratic proposals for the NY SAFE Act. They included these:
- Confiscation of all firearms arbitrarily redefined as “assault weapons”
- Labeling semi-automatic shotguns as “assault weapons” if they can hold more than five rounds or have a pistol-grip stock
- Confiscation of 10-round magazines
- Limiting the number of rounds in a magazine to five; magazines of greater capacity to be confiscated
- Limiting number of magazines in possession to two
- Mandatory microstamping of all guns in NY state
- Statewide database of all guns
- Limiting guns purchases to one per month
- Allowing a pistol permit database to be released to the public
- Relicensing of all pistol permit owners
- Renewal of all pistol permits every five years
There were more.
Assemblyman McLaughlin explained the intent of his Democrat colleagues in Albany on his campaign site:
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin (R, C, I-Melrose) today revealed a 15-point anti-Second Amendment wish list that Democrats lobbied to be included in the final New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (NY SAFE) Act. McLaughlin called the list the “second phase” of a gun-grab agenda targeting responsible firearm owners that downstate politicians have been supporting for years.
“First the new gun-control bill made criminals out of law-abiding New Yorkers. And the radical, anti-Second Amendment proposals outlined in this wish list suggest the second phase of the plan: confiscation,” said McLaughlin. “When downstate politicians criminalize responsible gun ownership, they only empower criminals.”
The rejected proposals seem to mirror — at least in part — the desires of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had publicly entertained gun confiscation and forced buybacks.
The provisions of the NY SAFE Act that did become law still demand far more of New Yorkers than many gun owners are willing to comply with. For example, one of the requirements of the law is that all newly classified “assault weapons” must be registered with the New York State Police by April 15, 2014. Many New York guns owners are intent on refusing to register their firearms:
Assault-rifle [sic] owners statewide are organizing a mass boycott of Gov. Cuomo’s new law mandating they register their weapons, daring officials to “come and take it away,” The Post has learned.
Gun-range owners and gun-rights advocates are encouraging hundreds of thousands of owners to defy the law, saying it’d be the largest act of civil disobedience in state history.
“I’ve heard from hundreds of people that they’re prepared to defy the law, and that number will be magnified by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, when the registration deadline comes,” said Brian Olesen, president of the American Shooters Supply, one of the largest gun dealers in the state.
Officials estimate at least 1 million semiautomatic rifles are owned in the state, sources said.
And come April 15, 2014 — when Cuomo is expected to be running for re-election — they all have to be registered with the State Police.
But because the rifles have been legal but unregistered until now, authorities don’t know who has them or where they are located.
State officials will be nervously watching the registration figures to see how many gun owners comply, sources said.
New York has estimated that there are one million firearms that fit their new definition of an “assault weapon,” and they are concerned that a large number of citizens will rip the teeth out of the law by simply refusing to register their arms. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of New York’s most law-abiding citizens are likely to make the choice to rebel against an unconstitutional law that violates their Second Amendment rights.
Perhaps of even more concern to Governor Cuomo and his anti-gun allies: this high level of resistance arose before Assemblyman McLaughlin released the list of confiscatory amendments Democrats had wanted to include in the NY SAFE Act.
NY Democrats have tipped their hand on their gun-control agenda, revealing to citizens that confiscatory disarmament of the civilian population is their goal, and that the “slippery slope” is no fable. They grossly miscalculated the public’s acceptance of their assault on the Second Amendment. What that means for the future in New York remains to be seen.
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