New York Is Losing Residents. Could This Be Part Of The Reason?

Another article from the Arbalest Quarrel entitled The Government Cannot Protect You! You Protect Yourself!. The article contains remarks by Stephen L. D’Andrilli on another article by Stephen Halbrook that was published in the NRA publication America's 1st Freedom. Halbrook's article is entitled How Does New York City Get Away With This?”

How indeed? How have the courts, with straight faces, denied so many the fundamental right of self defense? D'Andrelli notes that Halbrook retraces the denial of New Yorkers' rights to the 1911 Sullivan Act. Actually, it was the first such law in the country. Had New York's oppression been nipped in the bud, the landscape would likely look much different today.

It is of course disturbingly, depressingly, frustratingly true that, indeed, nothing has changed in New York City since 1911, insofar as the City continues to require a valid license to lawfully possess a handgun.

Still, in a few important respects, much has changed, and for the worse, since enactment of the unconscionable and unconstitutional Sullivan Act.

In the 109 years since handgun licensing began, New York City’s laws have become more extensive, more oppressive and repressive, and confoundingly difficult to understand. These laws are a labyrinthine maze of ambiguity and vagueness, and they are singularly bizarre.

...snip...

New York City’s tiered handgun licensing scheme is not only inconsistent with the Second Amendment, but it also promotes unlawful discrimination under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and invites both abuse by and corruption in the City’s Licensing Division. In fact, the City’s insufferable and puzzling handgun licensing scheme is, from a purely logical standpoint, apart from a legal standpoint, internally inconsistent and incoherent.

Premise residence and business handgun licenses place considerable restraints on a licensee’s right of self-defense. Unrestricted handgun carry licenses, on the other hand, are issued only to a select few people who satisfy arbitrary “proper cause,” requirements. Of course, powerful, wealthy, politically-connected “elites” are exceptions, routinely obtaining rare and coveted unrestricted handgun carry licenses, unavailable to the average citizen, residing in the City.

And criminals don’t obey handgun licensing rules or any other State law or City code, rule, or regulation pertaining to firearms. So they don’t care what the laws say. And this hasn’t changed.

But it is deeply troubling, indeed mind-boggling, to believe New York City’s harsh, brutal, even despotic handgun licensing scheme continues to escape Constitutional scrutiny...

It may be readung to much between the lines to suspect that both Halbrook and D'Andrelli smell a rat. But certainly I do. How have the courts consistently found that this law doesn't offend the Second Amendment? And once the Supremes had new York in the crosshairs, why didn't they pull the figurative trigger?

Sullivan apparently got tired of  Italian immigrants shooting back at his gang members.  Hence the law designed to disarm them.  His gang members, of course, wouldn't be stopped by the police, but Italians would be.  So, the law from the start was intended to be discriminatory.  It has become discriminatory against the average citizen, as only the elite can get a license to exercise the what has become a privilege.

The Supreme Court, of course, like other elite government officials, have the protection of law enforcement at their disposal.  The average citizen, not having the means to hire their own body guards, must defend themselves.  Therein, of course, is but one of the reasons for the Second Amendment.

The Arbalest Quarrel notes that in 2020, things have become even fore precarious for the average joe who just wants to defend himself and his family from two legged predators.

Radical Left State and local governments are no longer even allowing their police departments to provide a modicum of protection for their community. This follows from the unrestrained actions and antics of volatile Marxist and Anarchist groups whom they kowtow to. They have called for the defunding of and disbanding of community police departments across the Country and some jurisdictions have done so. In New York City the Radical Left Mayor, Bill de Blasio, has slashed $1 Billion from the NYPD budget. This comes at a critical time when soaring crime and daily riots demand more funding for police, not less.

This is a major change because the average American can, now, no longer depend on the police to provide even general protection to the community.

Americans are taking notice. They are buying guns and ammunition in record numbers. Maybe the Supreme Court should also take notice as well.  Meanwhile, New York is losing residents, and with it tax base, at an alarming rate. The proximate cause is of course the Covid lockdowns.  But surely the fact that they can not own a gun by law, while also not having a dependable police department doesn't help.  Besides food and water, one of a person's basic needs is security.

Please go read the article at the Arbalest Quarrel, and while your at it, go read Halbrook's article at the NRA's America's 1st Freedom