Democrat gun legislation expected to be rammed through the New York state legislature today isn’t about public safety, it’s about vengeance.
It’s about punishing the state’s political underclass for challenging the Democratic Party’s dictates.
Last week, the Supreme Court said that the state’s pistol-permit screening process was unconstitutional. In recognizing the natural right to armed self-defense outside the home, the Supreme Court also dealt a rebuff to the ego of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who took the ruling as an affront to the imperial power of her party and her office.
And today is payback.
Kathy Hochul and the Democrats who control the Assembly and Senate have announced the rollout of a series of measures meant to harass and intimidate law-abiding people who have concealed-carry handgun permits. Though that particular category of New Yorkers has the lowest rate of criminal conduct in the state, she is going to pound them.
Asked yesterday by a reporter if any statistics indicated pistol permit holders were a factor in the state’s dramatic increase in crime, the governor curtly responded that she didn’t need statistics and data points – she had power, and she was going to use it.
And the gun owners whose New York State Rifle and Pistol Association took the Cuomo-Hochul administration to court were going to pay.
And so today – without prior public disclosure of the legislation – the Democrats will take their revenge. Democrat legislators will push through and the governor will immediately sign bills that will damage businesses, discriminate against people of low and moderate income, criminalize lawful conduct, delay and impede the issuance of pistol permits, duplicate existing laws and regulations, and make the lawful carrying of a handgun in New York almost impossible as a practical matter.
This is the same Democrat legislature and governor who have removed bail requirements for 90% of arrestees, removed most criminal punishment from juvenile offenders, released large numbers of convicted felons on early parole, and essentially removed the possibility of revoking parole and returning ex-cons to prison for violating the terms of their release.
The New York Democratic Party, after years of legislatively siding with the state’s criminals, defunding the police and creating the most dangerous public-safety conditions in years, is now targeting New Yorkers who lawfully arm themselves to protect themselves and their families.
Here are some particulars.
Democrats will require permit holders to take an in-person, 20-hour gun course. That’s five times the length of the average such course required in other states, and it will come at a financial cost – about $1,000 – that will be prohibitive for applicants of low and moderate income.
Democrats will require businesses to post a sign at their entrance announcing that they allow customers on their property who have legally concealed handguns. If there is no sign, the Democrat law will presume that there is no permission, and anyone with a gun is guilty of trespassing. It also means that anyone who is shown to have a gun on the premises – say, if they had to use their gun to protect themselves – will be subject to criminal and civil prosecution.
What if a business owner herself chooses to have a handgun? She will have to post the sign.
And what happens in savagely woke New York if a business posts a sign saying it allows legally concealed handguns? It will be cancelled. Progressives will destroy it online and protest it in person.
Businesses will be intimidated into becoming Kathy Hochul’s “apostles,” or they will face the vindictive lash of her brown shirts.
This Democrat move puts innocent businesses right in the middle of a political issue the party is using as a wedge to further marginalize minority Republicans.
The governor also wants to ban lawfully concealed handguns in almost all places of public congregation, commerce, government function and anywhere children might be. Asked what that left, she responded “the streets.”
Many of these restrictions – schools and government buildings, for example – have been law for decades. Likewise, the governor’s call for background checks for all ammunition purchases was passed into law by the legislature more than five years ago. The Democrats are legislating not just in rage, but also in ignorance.
But it all has one intent: To punish those who questioned Democrat oppression in the courts by disarming them in the streets.
Last week, the Supreme Court said Americans have a right to armed self-defense outside their home. This week, Kathy Hochul said New Yorkers aren’t Americans. At least not as far as the Constitution and the Second Amendment are concerned. As the result of her vindictive retaliation, a Supreme Court ruling meant to expand the right of self-defense will all but eliminate self-defense in New York.
When personal freedom threatens political ego, as Kathy Hochul and her party are demonstrating, personal freedom is attacked and destroyed.
But it won’t just be freedom that dies.
Disarming the good people will only empower the bad people. Creating gun-free zones in almost every part of New York life will only increase the number of safe targets for the criminal class the Democrat Party protects and empowers.
Democrat “criminal-justice reform” has killed scores of innocent New Yorkers. The Democrats’ new “gun control” will now kill scores more.
And that’s what you get for questioning the power of your progressive masters.