originally posted by: cynicalheathen
Not going to stand up to legal scrutiny, seeing as how the Constitution doesn't allow for the banning of certain "classes" of weaponry.
Didn't Colorado learn from losing Magpul?
I thought the same thing when NY state passed the so called ‘SAFEAct’ which took the 1994 AWB and made it even more draconian. A semi auto rifle
with a pistol grip is now considered an assault rifle here under the letter of the law. We laughed and joked about how temporary it was because there
was no way it could stand up to court scrutiny. Yet here we are, 5+ years later and the UNSAFEact is still law of the land here.
The only minor saving grace was that nearly every county sheriff in the state stood up and stated that they had actual criminals to investigate and
weren’t going to waste the limited resources going After people who refused to alter their rifles to comply w the law or register them with the NY
State Police. YES, you read that correctly, they wanted everyone to register their rifles if they didn’t want to alter them to conform to the new,
unconstitutional law.
Just to give a little insight as to how the minds of our state law makers were operating in response to Sandy Hook, they rushed this piece of crap
through, literally, in the middle of the night and the way they worded the legislation actually made criminals out of every LEO in the state because
nobody was allowed to possess a magazine that could hold more than 7 rounds. Anyone who has ever picked up a firearm at Boy Scout camp knows that
there is no such thing as a 7 round magazine. That part was altered to allow for 10 round mags but you couldn’t load more than 7 rounds into one
without becoming a felon. They also exempted LEO’s from this because they all carry glocks w 15 round mags.
The only aspect of this idiotic law that was # down, temporarily at least, was the background checks for ammunition. The last I checked, that part was
still working its way through the courts but I honestly stopped keeping track of it once I bought property in Maine.
Now that we’ve bought a second property and a home there and moved up the timeframe for fleeing Cuomo’s police state I just don’t care because
I’ll be s full time resident of a state that is fine with my gay neighbors protecting their marijuana crops with the firearm if their choosing and I
no longer have to bother with the paperwork, background checks and 18 month wait for the Sheriffs dept to sign off on a pistol permit because with my
Maine drivers license I can walk into a firearms store, pass the NICS check and be on my way with a new handgun in about 20 minutes.
The worst part of the UNSAFEact is that it’s designed to violate not just 2A but the 4th amendment as well for those dumb enough to register their
firearms with the State. One of the provisions, which wasn’t an issue for me because I’ve got young kids and already had one, but you now legally
have to keep all firearms locked in a gun safe.
On the surface it seems fairly benign and even reasonable to those clamoring for reasonable gun laws. But in the fine print, it gives the state the
right to come into your home and verify that you are storing your weapons properly and obviously, once they’re in the door anything else that looks
off gives them exigency for s more in depth, warrabtkess searxh of your person and property. It’s s great thank you to people like me who have
physical limitations due to their military service. My main reason for owning firearms is to protect myself, my children and my home because even an
unarmed intruder can be difficult to overcome when you walk with a cane.
Unfortunately, I’ve got a feeling that by the time I have grandchildren, they will look at me as a chronological anachronism for still owning guns
in much the same way I couldn’t process the fact that my dads favorite shows as a kid were radio programs because growing up with color TV in the
70’s and 80’s gave me no way to thoroughly understand what life was like before television. Just like my kids never knew a world without the
internet and Xbox.
Sorry for the lengthy rant, but the short version of my diatribe should read “don’t count on the courts to uphold the constitution and invalidate
legislation like this. Nearly ever New England state and the NorthEast in general had similar laws in the books right now from New Jersey up through
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York etc... Maine seems to gethe only state in the North East that allows for the will of the people to
prevail.
It’s a shame that I’m moving my family 6 1/2 hours away from home simply to keep myself from becoming a felon for being so brazen as to insist
that the Second Amendment shouldn’t be tampered with by a bunch of extraordinarily left leaning state legislators from NYC and Long Island telling
people who live in thefoothills of the Adirondack Mountains how to protect my family. (whoa that was a crazy long run on sentence!)
Sorry, but when the fastest response Ive ever received from calling the police ( 2 armed men walking up towards my house from the woods ) was s little
over 20 minutes. I loathe having to call them period but if so was going to forced into a confrontation with 2 armed men I wanted to avoid any sort of
charges for protecting my kids who were outside playing and alerted me to the situation. It turned out to be a pair of hunters ( it was deer season up
here ) who weren’t familiar with the area and got lost.
If that had turned out any differently, the police are nothing but glorified secretaries and filing paperwork after the fact.
People need to get off of the internet, turn their TV off and ignore whatever BS byline about the Kardashians is the meme of the day and take a second
look at history. Whether it was an extreme, far left be they communists, socialists, Marxists or an extreme right wing manifestation as we say in
Europe from the 1920’s through the end of WWII, the first step taken to purge any dissenting voices was to pass laws banning ownership of firearms
by civilians. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and more recently South Africa, confiscated firearms and then rounded up Jews, poets, scientists...
anyone perceived as a threat to their indomitable rule was rounded up and executed. Tens of millions of innocent people, most of them trying to affect
change peacefully.
I refuse to become another statistic for the history books. I would much rather have the tools to defend my children and never have need for them than
I would have need for them but no access. Nobody wants to learn from the past apparently as we seem to be repeating them all.