Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765: New York restrictions on bullet sales take effect

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

New York restrictions on bullet sales take effect

By API - 1/15/2014

ALBANY, N.Y. -- It is now illegal in New York state to buy ammunition unless a licensed dealer can actually see you.

The requirement for face-to-face bullet sales is part of the law pushed through a year ago by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, one month after the massacre of 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Conn.

The law has taken effect incrementally since, banning sales of some popular semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines, requiring federal background checks on private gun sales and imposing felony penalties for illegal gun possession. It has also drawn crowds of protesters to the Capitol and lawsuits saying it infringes on Second Amendment rights. For ammunition, transactions are now required to take place in person. That includes Internet sales, requiring the face-to-face involvement of the buyer and a New York-licensed seller. A federal judge upheld that provision in a ruling two weeks ago that's being appealed.

"Most people come to a gun shop to buy ammo anyway," said Jason Marshall at Target Sports in Glenville, 20 miles northwest of Albany. "Online sales are dead."

Marshall said Wednesday's effective date hasn't spawned another big spike in ammunition sales like the law's passage and rumors of federal stockpiling did last year. However, popular .22-caliber ammunition has remained scarce and sells out quickly. The store has stocks of most other rounds, he said.

Organizations like shooting ranges and hunting clubs that distribute ammunition on their premises can register to keep getting direct shipments. According to state police, the law will require retailers to record bullet sales and do background checks on buyers once a state database is operating. It's intended to keep bullets away from convicted felons, the mentally ill and others prohibited under state or federal law from having them.

Judge William Skretny, in upholding most of the law, concluded the face-to-face requirement for ammunition sales doesn't violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause or create a monopoly for New York dealers since out-of-state dealers can also establish brick-and-mortar outlets here.

State Sen. Greg Ball, a Hudson Valley Republican, said Tuesday he knows the law is unconstitutional and he hopes law enforcement wait on enforcing the ammunition provision for a final court decision. "It really is an asinine portion of the bill," he said, adding that it shows a lack of appreciation for both police and hunters, does nothing to save lives and creates an issue with gun clubs having to register.

State police spokeswoman Darcy Wells said Tuesday that 23 ranges and gun clubs have registered as organizational keepers of ammunition and can get it directly from manufacturers, but many others already had dealer registrations that suffice. The state database is still under construction, and sellers will be notified before it's operational and the reporting requirements are relevant, she said.

Wells declined to discuss the agency's tactics in addressing now illegal Internet sales. State police already have a computer crimes unit.

The federal judge struck down one provision of the law that prohibits loading more than seven bullets into a legal 10-round magazine, saying it's an apparently arbitrary number and it was far likelier than other provisions "of disproportionately affecting law-abiding citizens."

Cuomo said last week that Srketny's ruling is the law for the state until it's changed by another court.

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It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.

Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765

Pages

Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

Preservation and Proposition

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

New York restrictions on bullet sales take effect

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