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Note To New York State: Stop Treating Gun Owners Like Criminals

I’m sick and tired of it.

I’m good and fed up with this idea some anti-gun lawmakers have that law-abiding citizens are somehow the problem with gun violence in this country. Oh, they may claim they think no such thing, but color me unconvinced. After all, they continue to pass legislation that anyone with half a brain knows will do nothing to impact criminals, just hamstring law-abiding citizens.

It’s stupid.

Yet no matter what, it seems that’s all some folks want to do. In particular, people like this:

Wiriadjaja was one of several members of New York-based lobby group Gays Against Guns who joined assistant Assembly Speaker Felix Ortiz, D-51, Wednesday to unveil new gun control legislation in the state Assembly.

“Every day, we hear about gun violence in our neighborhood and our community,” Ortiz said. “Tragedies are happening, and it has to stop. These bills are important to save lives.”

Ortiz detailed six bills as part of his gun control legislation package, two of which are new. Bill No. A.8931 would require GPS tracking on guns to locate firearms that have been lost or stolen. Introduced Dec. 30, the measure is in the Assembly’s Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee.

The other recent legislation, bill No. A.9783, was introduced Feb. 11 and remains in the Codes Committee. The bill proposes to create a “smart gun” commission to authorize safety and performance standards for personalized pistols and would mandate firearm sellers to sell at least one personalized pistol.

The other four proposed gun control bills are:

 A.3152: Legislation prohibiting the creation of “ghost guns” by requiring manufactured or assembled guns to have serial number engraved or affixed to the gun and its component parts

 A.3779: Legislation that would require ammunition manufacturers to use the Ammunition Coding System (ACS) on all handguns and assault weapons sold in New York state.

 A.3258: The Handgun Trigger Safety Act” is legislation that would create a fund to develop “personalized pistols” or “smart guns” technology in New York State. “Smart” technology can prevent accidental shootings and stop stolen guns from being used in crimes.

 A.2847: Legislation that requires owners of firearms to obtain a minimum liability insurance of $250,000.

Ortiz is prepared for backlash from the National Rifle Association, and will not give up on getting the bills passed, he said.

By now, we’re used to seeing “ghost gun” bans being proposed and, frankly, I expect New York will pass that one without much issue. The idea of “coding” ammo is stupidly easy to get around by just buying ammo out of state. So-called smart guns are a non-starter and, frankly, no gun company is interested in pursuing the technology. The few firms trying it have yet to make a viable prototype, so that’s not likely to happen.

Yet many of those bills seem to acknowledge that bad people do bad things, often with stolen guns. After all, trying to Lojack a gun and pushing for smart guns are all measures that seem to acknowledge that criminals steal weapons in order to use them.

However, requiring gun owners to have liability insurance is another matter entirely.

That suggests that law-abiding gun owners represent some kind of a threat to the public, that we’re recklessly endangering people and require insurance to mitigate the costs of that recklessness.

Further, it makes exercising a constitutional right even more expensive, a fact that will hurt the poor disproportionally. That includes a large number of minority gun owners as well.

Let’s also be clear here, there’s absolutely no other constitutional right that anyone would say requires liability insurance. You’re not required to have it to exercise your freedom of religion or freedom of speech. Groups protestings aren’t required to get insurance before exercising their right to assemble.

Literally no other constitutional right would face this kind of action, and twits like Ortiz doesn’t even think about it. It doesn’t bother him in the least, and that’s a big damn problem.

It’s time to make lawmakers at every level of government to face political ramifications for this kind of nonsense. Once a few lose their jobs over this, the rest will knock it the hell off.

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