The Gun Grabbers Are Comin' Knockin' Again

New York State is one of the worst states in the nation to own a gun. Thank goodness for the Second Amendment and for the Supremacy Clause in our federal Constitution which (in its most basic description) puts federal law above state law (for the most part), for if it wasn’t for those two staples in our Constitution, New York State would undoubtedly wipe gun ownership off the State map! How do I know this? Just look at the overwhelming evidence…

To start, did you know that the word “gun” doesn’t even appear in our State Constitution? Not once. Nor does the word “arms”. The only even slightly remote (and highly tenuous) reference to the right to bear arms in our State Constitution is Article XII which establishes an “organized militia”. But even that provision lacks the establishment of protecting this crucial right of gun ownership in our State. The entire article is a whopping two, rather anorexic, sentences which read:

Section 1. The defense and protection of the state and of the United States is an obligation of all persons within the state. The legislature shall provide for the discharge of this obligation and for the maintenance and regulation of an organized militia.

This is a far cry from codifying the Second Amendment into our State Constitution. Regardless, thanks to our federal Constitution, no matter how begrudgingly, the radical politicians that control our New York State Legislature must allow gun ownership. However, they have a long history of pushing the limits with “government overreach” in this arena by making it extremely difficult to own a gun here. The politicians and bureaucrats alike have created an extremely burdensome process that you must go through in order to own a gun, not to mention the hoops you have to jump through to properly maintain your “permission” to own guns. Their thought process is likely grounded in the idea that the more bureaucratic gunk they pile on top of you, the easier it will be to catch you in a non-compliance situation. Something akin to, “Well, you missed checking off that one box hidden deep in the middle of page 10 of the 3000th document we made you fill out so… we are cancelling your gun permit.” Of course, they won’t ever admit that. No, instead, they say it’s for your “safety” that they want to take your gun from you (or prohibit you from owning one altogether). But anyone with a functioning cerebrum knows that is utterly untrue. Smoke and mirrors. History shows, time and again, that politicians (who are the main ingredient that comprise our “government”) hide behind the “we are just trying to protect you” excuse in order to do things that they have zero power to do. (Remember their illegal quarantines, forced lockdowns, masks, shots, and so on during the C-19 years?)

And so, the gun grabbers couch their criminality in deceitful terms and tell you that they are “enhancing gun safety” or they say they’re saving you from “imminent threat and danger” to your safety. But make no mistake, they are trampling all over your rights. The plethora of anti-gun laws that the New York State Legislature has passed over the years are too voluminous to cover here, but let’s look at a couple of the most egregious laws from recent history. A few years ago, the radicals in Albany passed a law that said if you wanted to carry a handgun in public, you had to prove you had a specific need to defend yourself. The law said you had to prove “proper cause” existed in order to exercise your right to carry a handgun. The gun-grabbers defined “proper cause” as a reason that was specific to a certain, repeated threat, and did not include the natural desire to protect yourself generally speaking. Indeed, a glaring violation of our Second Amendment. The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association sued, and the case (The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen) ultimately went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court which struck down the law as a violation of the Second Amendment. In that 63-page, 2022 decision, SCOTUS set a new standard: from now on, courts should uphold gun restrictions only if there is a tradition of such regulation in U.S. history.

However, despite that clear directive, the gun grabbers are at it again…

Link to Bill is HERE

In their latest Second Amendment attack, New York State legislators created Bill S-4277 which bans you from having any kind of .50 caliber (or larger) firearms, no exceptions. Their reasoning? Well, here’s the language they put in the bill…

 Section 1. Legislative findings and declaration. The legislature here-
 by finds and declares that 50 caliber or larger weapons having the
 capacity for rapidly discharging ammunition have no acceptable purpose.
 The legislature additionally finds and declares that such weapons pose
 such an imminent threat and danger to the safety and security of the
 people of this state that it is necessary to ban the possession and use
 of such weapons.

There’s that “imminent threat and danger to your safety” fear-jerker I referenced earlier. Additionally, they named the bill something warm and fuzzy so that it sounds good to unsuspecting New Yorkers…

 §  2. Short title. This act shall be known and may be cited as the "50
 Caliber Threat Reduction Act".   

See how they manipulate the words there? The title of the bill literally defines 50 caliber guns as “threats.” What are 50 caliber guns a threat to? Well obviously to you, your family, your friends’ lives. It’s quite clever marketing, isn’t it? But don’t be fooled - they wrap their biggest lies up in candy. (You can read the whole bill here if you like).

The logical question that follows is, how do we stop this? Not just this bill in particular, but the array of bills and already-passed-laws that violate our rights - whether they be our gun rights, our parental rights, our civil rights, etc. Well, for New York, it’s high time we regain control of our State by firing the radical politicians who run the show! It is the only way we will end the insidious and continuous attacks on our freedoms.

I’ve said this a hundred times, lawsuits are great as a tool to curb government overreach, but they are not the answer. Lawsuits will not stop the cause of the cancer… they only temporarily provide a respite. Besides, lawsuits take a very long time to wind their way through the courts, they require attorneys willing to go against the grain, and they take a ton of resources, energy, and money. It’s true I have done some very high profile cases pro bono (like my Quarantine Camp lawsuit against Governor Hochul, and my Prop 1 lawsuit against the NYS Legislature), but that is extremely rare and certainly not sustainable for an attorney to take on huge cases like that pro bono. (Please note, the only way I’ve been able to do those pivotal lawsuits pro bono is because of the generous support of the Brownstone Institute where I am a Fellow, and the generosity of donors, like you. If you haven’t yet and would like to make a donation to help defray the tremendous costs incurred on those cases, please click here).

So, the path forward now is to swap out the radical politicians for common sense representatives, and we do this by increasing our voter base. Simple enough. It just needs the oragnization, time, effort and funding. We’re calling this initiative #TakeBackNY, and it is being spearheaded by the citizens’ group, Uniting NYS, which was one of my plaintiffs on my Quarantine Camp lawsuit against the Governor. I wrote an article last month about our initiative, and you can access that article, “The Lost City… And State” by clicking here. This is a snippet from that article:

Next year, November 2026, we can wipe the slate clean with an entirely new governor, Attorney General, State Senate, and State Assembly, for they will all be up for election. It is truly a golden opportunity, for every last one of them must go! To that end, the dedicated members of Uniting NYS and I are teaming up to do three crucial things:

1) educate New Yorkers on the dangerous (and often corrupt) things that these NYS politicians are doing behind closed doors,

2) run voter registration drives across the State to get more citizens registered to vote, and

3) get already registered voters to sign a pledge to vote these people out next November.

We are collecting everyone’s contact information, and we will do a massive get-out-the-vote push next October/November so everyone remembers to VOTE.

If you want to help end the gun-grabbing attacks here in New York, one way is to make a donation supporting our movement to #TakeBackNY. You can make a one-time donation here, or a recurring donation here.

If you’d like to volunteer instead, you can reach out to Uniting NYS by clicking here or email them at Contact@UnitingNYS.com

It is crucial that we stop the illegal gun grabs, and the myriad of other unconstitutional things that our government is doing here in New York. November 2026 is not that far away, so now is the time to unify, organize and act. Waiting until next year is too late, for the perpetrators of these constitutional blows just keep throwing the punches, and they have shown us that they won’t stop unless and until they are unseated next November.

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• On X at https://x.com/UnitingNYS

• On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/uniting_nys/

• On Telegram at Uniting NYS https://t.me/unitingnewyorkstate

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Inspirational Quote:

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

- Helen Keller