2nd Amendment Watch: NY Residents Are Not Complying With “Assault” Weapon Registration
In January 2013 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act. The legislation was signed into law on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting and was seen as a victory for those who believe safety is a byproduct of a disarmed populace.Under the law, failure to register an assault weapon by the April 2014 deadline can be treated as a misdemeanor offense. The charge is punishable by “forfeiture of the weapon” and up to one year in jail. If that isn’t bad enough, under a different statute failure to register could be treated as a low-level felony, punishable by up to four years in prison!Obviously, the perceived intention of this law was to scare owners into registering their property, but it is over a year after the legislation was signed and only a small percentage of gun owners have registered their “assault” weapons.The NY Daily News reports:
In the years since Gov. Cuomo signed the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the NY SAFE Act, a total of 23,847 people have applied to register their assault-style weapons with the state, according to statistics provided by the New York State Police.Those individuals themselves registered 44,485 assault-style weapons — a term whose definition under the law was expanded to include military-style features like a pistol grip and popular civilian models of the M16 and AK47 assault rifles — with State Police, the data, which was first obtained by the Albany Times Union, show.By comparison, individuals in Connecticut, a state with roughly one-fifth the population of New York, registered more than 50,000 assault-style weapons after similar legislation was passed there in April 2013.Law enforcement experts have estimated there could be nearly 1 million assault-style weapons in circulation across the state, suggesting that many New Yorkers are ignoring a central provision of what had been touted by gun control advocates as a milestone law.
The article above references Public Act 13-220 passed in Connecticut, which we wrote about last year while pointing out that it essentially created a quarter million potential felons overnight.In order for authorities in Connecticut or New York to enforce these types of laws they would need to essentially raid the homes of hundreds of thousands of residents and find a way to process all of these non-violent offenders through the criminal justice system.It doesn’t take a genius to realize that enforcing this law would be political suicide for any politician. Additionally, if authorities attempted to arrest those who did not comply with the law there would likely be civil unrest. Of course, it’s not hard to imagine scenarios where police officers could choose to use this law as a means to arrest individuals when they do not yet have sufficient evidence to bring charges for other crimes.In all likelihood, those responsible for this legislation coming into existence never imagined a case where all "assault" weapon owners would willingly register their guns. Nor did they imagine a scenario where the authorities enact an all-out police state to enforce gun registration. The passage of this law was political grandstanding, plain and simple. Gov. Cuomo and his cohorts had to know at the time that this law would not be enforceable across the board and they probably envisioned the law's enforcement playing out much like it has to this point. For all intents and purposes, the law was signed to appease the anti-gun left and provided the Governor an opportunity to toss a bone to his support base.This isn't to say that we shouldn't be pushing for repeal of the law. The law violates the Second Amendment and infringes upon the rights of individuals to procure the tools that they determine are necessary to defend themselves. But I don't think we need to worry about troops being deployed in New York to forcibly register all the "assault" weapons.The law is terrible, but it's not enforceable.Check out previous editions of Second Amendment Watch!Do you think this law is enforceable? Come on by and discuss in the The Lions of Liberty Forum on Facebook!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Check out our YouTube Channel!Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
