Tag Archives: New York State Legislature

Waiting For The Court Cases On This New Law To Begin

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On June 23rd, The New York Post reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the restrictions New York State had put on concealed carry permits.

The Court ruled:

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday that the law’s requirement of New Yorkers who want a permit to carry a handgun in public to show “proper cause” that the weapon is ​specifically needed for self-defense “violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.”

Well, the New York legislature decided that the Supreme Court decision was unacceptable.

On Saturday, The American Thinker reported:

In an act of breathtaking defiance and spitefulness not seen since Southern states engaged in “massive resistance” to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision, the New York State Legislature gave a middle finger to the Supreme Court and voted Friday to effectively nullify the Court’s decision last week in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

After an extraordinary session for the explicit purpose of defying the Court, Senate Bill S51001 was rammed through on a party-line vote by the Democratic supermajority, passed the Assembly, and received the signature of Gov. Kathleen Hochul.

Writing for the majority in Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas struck down New York’s century-old requirement that an applicant for a handgun carry permit demonstrate a “special need” if he wanted to carry for self-defense.  New York’s licensing process was entirely discretionary and arbitrary, and in many jurisdictions, licensing officers simply refused to issue permits for self-defense.  This was particularly true in New York City, where applicants were routinely and summarily rejected unless they were politically connected or celebrities — such as Howard Stern, Donald Trump, and Don Imus.  In other jurisdictions, licensing officers simply invented acceptable reasons on a whim, often issuing handgun licenses for “hunting and target shooting” only, if at all.  (In one rural upstate county, a former judge who had authority as a licensing officer invented a requirement that he would not allow any permit-holder to have more than five handguns without appearing before him personally and giving a “good reason.”)

In Bruen, Justice Thomas ruled that these arbitrary restrictions were unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment’s guarantee to keep “and bear” arms for self-defense, ordering New York State and New York City to issue concealed carry permits to qualified applicants for that reason.

In response, Gov. Hochul (who was endorsed by the NRA in 2012 when she ran for Congress in rural Western New York) vindictively declared that New York would restrict guns to the point where the State would “go back to muskets.”  Hochul called the Legislature back from recess and presented a bill that criminalizes as a felony offense concealed carry in perhaps 98% of the state.

At some point you begin to wonder why some people in our government are so anxious to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

I Hate To Be Paranoid, But This Scares Me To Death

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On Friday, The American Thinker posted an article about New York State Bill A416, which would provide amazing power to the Governor of New York and members of the administrative state.

The article reports:

In roughly three weeks, the New York state legislature will vote on Bill A416, which will give the New York governor (in this case, the power-mad Kathy Hochul), as well as the governor’s delegates (i.e., New York’s administrative state) the power to indefinitely detain anyone the governor or her agencies deem a “significant threat to public health.” Despite the broad power states have, this violates the Constitution. At a practical level, it should scare the pants off every American.

There is absolutely no doubt that, under our Constitution, the states have powers that the federal government lacks. The federal government is explicitly a creature of very limited powers, while the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that those limited powers not reserved to the federal government belong to the state “or to the people.”

The Tenth Amendment, however, does not mean that states can play the dictator. Indeed, since the Civil War, states have been subject to the same constraints as the federal government when it comes to using its police power over the people within its borders. Thus, the second sentence in the Fourteenth Amendment states explicitly that

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Among the privileges Americans have is a pivotal one in the Fifth Amendment assuring us that “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….” That deprivation is precisely what New York state contemplates.

The article notes:

No matter the language in the bill, given that the New York governor has the uncontested power to declare a health emergency, people are at risk. If you’re wondering what that looks like, look to Victoria, in Australia. There, people are locked up in concentration camps for the mere suspicion of having COVID.

And again, it cannot be said often enough that this is a disease with an average mortality rate hovering around 1% (a rate that could be even lower if people were allowed treatment with Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine early in their diagnosis). By way of contrast, this is not AIDS, which entered the West with a 100% mortality rate but never resulted in such a draconian response.

If we don’t wake up and stand up quickly, we will lose our freedom and our country.