A tip of the hat to Bearing Arms reader and New York resident Rob for alerting me to the idiotic actions happening a few towns over from where he lives. Officials in the Long Island community of Babylon Village, which is part of a larger community called Babylon Town, have enacted a ban on gun and ammo sales in the town, which is home to about 12,000 residents. 

The newly adopted ordinance does carve out an exception for two gun shows held at the local American Legion hall every year, but anyone hoping to open up a storefront location or operate a home-based business as an FFL is out of luck, unless they feel like hiring an attorney and challenging the prohibition in court. 

In addition, the new law prohibits anyone from illegally carrying or discharging a firearm. Police and those licensed by the state are exempt. Much of the law reiterates what is already enshrined in state gun laws, village officials said.

Mayor Mary Adams said the new legislation was not spurred by gun businesses attempting to open in the village.

“We just thought it was in the best interest to put something in place,” she said. “Good people carry guns and so do bad people and I’m not going to take that chance . . . I’ve got to protect the kids and the families here.”

By making it harder for responsible adults to exercise their right to keep and bear arms? Adams and the other officials who voted for the ban aren't protecting these families. They're virtue signaling their opposition to gun ownership at the expense of residents' civil rights. Adams told Newsday that residents and vistors " can go purchase a gun somewhere else. I just don’t want a store in the downtown selling them.”

Matthew Seifer, owner of Guardian Guns & Ammo in Deer Park, said the legislation just limits consumers’ “ability to pick and choose where they want to go.”

Seifer, whose store is currently the only gun shop operating in the town, said he went through a rigorous approval process. Babylon Town requires gun shops to get a special exception permit from the zoning board of appeals and are only permitted in E Business or G Industry zoning districts. Seifer said he recently got approval to add a firearms range to his business, which also provides gun safety training.

“We screen everybody prior to purchasing and possessing,” he said, which comes after a separate licensing process for the buyer. “It’s not like they can just buy and leave.”

Oh, the mayor has made it pretty clear that this isn't about the rules and regulations surrounding the sale and purchase of firearms and ammunition in New York, which already requires background checks on every transaction in addition to subjecting would-be gun owners to a draconian permitting process before they can simply keep a firearm in their home. Adams doesn't like gun stores, and I get the impression that she's not that fond of gun owners either. 

 Rory Vazquez, president of the Caribou Rifle & Pistol Club based in North Babylon, said his sports club recruits members for shooting competitions at the gun shows in Babylon Village. He said he had been working with the shows’ organizer to add more shows there but the new legislation will likely end that plan.

“It is a lost opportunity for us,” he said, adding that he didn’t see the point of the legislation.

“Who are they chasing out of the village?” he said. “There are gun shops everywhere in the country and you don’t see crime happening in a gun store. Everything that’s happening in a gun store is legal. I don’t know why they’re so frightened.”

I don't know if "frightened" is the word I'd use. "Bigoted" seems like a much better fit to me. Imagine if Adams and the other hoplophobes in Babylon Village were taking aim at houses of worship or even bookstores. They'd be pilloried in the press and public for their attacks on the First Amendment. So why shouldn't they be named and shamed for erecting a barrier, no matter how easy it is to get around, between residents and their Second Amendment rights? 

As 2A scholar and attorney Dave Kopel laid out in a 2014 article in Harvard Law Review, the federal courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects the right to both buy and sell books, but those same courts have split on whether or not the Second Amendment protects the right to buy and sell arms. Kopel declared that while this question "has divided the federal courts, the answer is quite clear:" a business that provides Second Amendment services is protected by the Second Amendment. 

In his article Kopel cites several Supreme Court cases where the justices ruled that "providers of constitutionally protected goods and services had constitutional rights, and their particular claims were entitled to be tested under the strict standards that apply to restrictions on constitutional rights". But Kopel also points to the national tradition of gun ownership as evidence of the unconstitutional nature of bans like the one established in Babylon Village.

In terms of the original meaning of the Second Amendment, the right to engage in firearms commerce is clear.  It is one of the most important reasons why America’s political dispute with Great Britain turned into an armed revolution.

In the fall of 1774, King George III embargoed all imports of firearms and ammunition into the thirteen colonies. The Americans treated the embargo on firearms commerce as evidence of plain intent to enslave America, and the Americans redoubled their efforts to engage in firearms commerce.  For example, the Patriots in South Carolina were led by the “General Committee,” which declared: “[B]y the late prohibition of exporting arms and ammunition from England, it too clearly appears a design of disarming the people of America, in order the more speedily to dragoon and enslave them.” Writes one early-nineteenth-century historian, “[I]t was therefore recommended, to all persons, to provide themselves immediately, with at least twelve and a half rounds of powder, with a proportionate quantity of bullets." 

The British and the Americans agreed that the reimposition of London’s rule in the United States required the prohibition of the firearms business.  In 1777, with British victory seemingly within grasp, Colonial Undersecretary William Knox drafted a plan entitled What Is Fit to Be Done with America?  To prevent any future rebellions, Knox planned that the Church of England be established as the official religion throughout America; that Parliament have power to tax America domestically (although there were no Americans in Parliament); and that a hereditary aristocracy be created in America. Another part of the plan was that “the Arms of all the People should be taken away . . . nor should any Foundery or manufactuary of Arms, Gunpowder, or Warlike Stores, be ever suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder, Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without Licence.”

The opposite of What Is Fit to Be Done with America? is the Constitution of the United States of America.  No national religion. The tax power solely in the hands of a representative Congress. No titles of nobility. And a guarantee of the right to buy, sell, and manufacture arms.

The modern-day Tories in charge of Babylon Village have enacted an ordinance that flies in the face of both common sense and our shared history, and I'd love to see them hauled into court to try to defend their nonsensical edict. For any FFL wanting to open a business in the area, however, it'll probably be much easier to simply find another location than to sue the village for the right to sell guns and and ammo. Alas, Babylon Village's unconstitutional prohibition is likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, or at least until residents give Adams and her fellow prohibitionists the boot at the ballot box.