By Robert Farago via The Truth About Guns
“State lawmakers from Brooklyn announced on Monday new legislation aimed at tightly restricting the sale of ammunition in New York,” brooklyeagle.com reports. “The Senate and Assembly bills were drafted in an effort to keep potential terrorists from stocking up on ammo, according to sponsors state Sen. Roxanne Persaud and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon.” Yeah, right. Skipping all the yada yada yada, we learn that the amendment to the SAFE Act would limit Empire State gun owners’ ammo purchasers to twice a gun’s capacity every ninety days. As the Eagle points out . . .
While the measure is aimed at owners of assault rifles, the language contained in the draft legislation would also affect owners of handguns with much smaller capacities, such as six-shooters.
Since the measure would cap the amount of ammunition to no more than twice the amount of the capacity of the weapon every 90 days, these gun owners would be limited to buying a dozen bullets every three months.
This provision is likely to make the bill unpopular with everyday gun owners and advocacy groups including the National Rifle Association.
Ya think?
This amendment to the SAFE Act could well be the most impractical gun control legislation ever drafted – and that’s saying something. In order for it to “work,” anyone selling ammunition in New York would have to have immediate access to a database of gun owners that revealed how many of what type of guns they own, and how much ammo they’d bought in what caliber, and when. In the case of the “six-shooter” above, the ammo provider would have to sell less than a box of ammo.
You may recall that the Empire State suspended the ammunition registration part of New York’s passed-in-the-dead-of-the-night-insituted-as-an-“emergency”-measure, unconstitutional, ironically-named SAFE Act because it was unworkable and really, really expensive. Which makes this amendment nothing less than a fascist farce. It gets worse . . .
Under the proposal, Section 270.00 of the New York State Penal Law would be amended to prevent gun dealers from selling ammunition for a firearm to anyone unauthorized to have such a weapon, regardless of the weapon type. Under the current code, only pistols and revolvers are specifically regulated. The bills sponsors say this creates a “loophole” for those seeking to purchase ammunition for assault weapons.
If enacted, no one could sell .223 or 5.56 caliber ammunition in New York. How would the State enforce these provisions? The same way they enforce ANY law: by force.
Penalty for the violation of this law would also be increased from a Class B misdemeanor, or not more than three months in jail and not more than $500 in fines, to a Class E felony, or up to four years in prison with a minimum of one year.
A one-year minimum jail sentence for buying more ammo than allowed, or the wrong type of ammo? Did I just wake up in Communist China? Grandstanding aside, any New Yorker who thinks the State won’t come after their unregistered “assault rifles” take note: judging by their determination to destroy citizen’s gun rights, they bloody well will. [h/t HB]
