New York State Senator Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn)wanted to show how easy it was to buy "high-capacity gun clips" in New York State. He visited two gun stores in the Albany area where they were sold. However, these were pre-ban AK-47 magazines which are legal to sell in New York State. So, in his "undercover" investigation, he buys a legal product and based upon this he is proposing to ban all standard capacity magazines.
Somehow his logic just fails me.
Adams has introduced S. 3573-2011 for the purposes of making "all large capacity ammunition feeding devices, regardless of date of manufacture, subject to the provisions of the penal law." In other words, outlawing any magazines with a capacity of greater than 10. This is not the only gun control measure he has introduced this session of the New York State Senate. He has also introduced a bill requiring everyone outside of New York City to register their firearms on an annual basis with their respective county clerks.
Cam Edwards does a fine job of deconstructing Senator Adams and his shocking undercover video.
Let's see here, Article 1 Section 9 US Constitution: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." That pretty much knocks out outlawing possession of magazines (not clips!) which you already own. Further "A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution... The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of
ReplyDeletecensorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down... a person cannot be compelled 'to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the constitution."
— MURDOCK V. PENNSYLVANIA 319 US 105 (1942)
It's always enlightening to see what the anti's are willing to throw out or ignore to get their way. Paging Alan Gura!
No, RKV. That is not an ex post facto law.
ReplyDeleteAn ex post facto law would be one making you a criminal for the fact of having possessed them before the law passed.
Ex post facto laws make behavior that was legal at the time it occurred a crime in retrospect.
Banning things now that were legal in the past is not an ex post facto law, since the crime there is in possession of them after the law is passed.
The State maintains the power of making things illegal to posses (especially the states rather than the Federal government, as their police power is more or less plenary) that were legal to possess in the past.