In a truly free society, no one can tell you how to exercise your constitutionally protected rights so long as no one gets harmed. You should try to exercise them responsibly, but the moment the state steps in to dictate what you do with those rights, freedom goes out the window.
Yes, even if you're being a jackass by not doing something, it's still not the role of the government to mandate how you exercise your rights absent direct harm to another person.
But states like New York don't see it that way, and neither do the morons at Brady.
The Brady Campaign is cheering Tuesday’s passage of storage legislation in New York that will require gun owners to lock up their firearms.
Brady noted that the legislation “will mandate that any person who owns or is the custodian of a firearm, shotgun, or rifle must securely store it.”
...
The text also says, “There are escalating penalties for failure to securely store firearms if there is a minor or person prohibited from owning a firearm in the home, if such a person actually accesses the firearm, and if harm results from that access.”
Breitbart's AWR Hawkins notes that Brady President Kris Brown, who also celebrated the passage, made no note of what people should do when someone breaks into their home, but their gun is "safely" locked away where they can't access it quickly enough.
It's a fair question, because in high-stress situations, fine motor control goes to crap, meaning many gun safes aren't likely to be what anyone might term "easy access." Biometrics might be faster, but that's if they're working and you're not already sweating from the stress.
Look, I think people should lock guns up when not in use. The problem is that the gun in the nightstand while you sleep counts as "in use" to me, but not necessarily to the state of New York. Plus, there are increased penalties if you have a kid, but what if that kid is the one who needs the gun when you and your partner are out for a night on the town? It's not like it hasn't happened, after all, and those kids are lucky to be alive simply because they had parents who knew they could be trusted to do what was right and what was needed.
But no, the nanny state of New York knows better, and Brady knows better, because they're all about safety except when it comes to you keeping yourself and your family safe from violent criminals.
Nothing about this is new, of course. They call it "safe storage," but it's not. It's mandatory storage, and that's all it's ever been. They don't care about your safety. They care about telling you how to exercise your constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
And then they'll lecture you about how you don't understand freedom when you object.
Again, I think guns should be behind a lock when not in use. I just see the whole "in use" as it being available for use should the need arise. New York lawmakers, though, seem to think that they need to protect the criminals from the regular folks in the name of protecting them from themselves.
That's not freedom. That's not American.
Pretty on the nose for New York, though.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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