Wednesday, December 23, 2015

New York Ammo Law Proposal

A lawmaker from Brooklyn has proposed a completely unworkable amendment to New York's SAFE act which would no doubt stop the "sensless gun violence" by severely restricting the ammo supply. Details at the link but the gist so far is that there would be a complete ban on the sale of .223 and 5.56 caliber ammo coupled with a limit to the number of rounds any one customer could buy set to twice the capacity of the gun it's intended for. They don't say, but all mag-fed guns in NY are currently officially limited to 10 rounds so you presumably couldn't buy more than 20 rounds of anything every 90 days tops. Revolver shooters would be limited to 10-12 rounds every 3 months and some shotgunners might be limited to 2.

The bill fails on logistical grounds as the only way to insure that no one is stocking up is to have an exhaustive and microscopically complete registration of every gun owned in the state. This database would need to be available to every ammo seller in the state as well which is equivalent to saying that it's a public record. At the same time, all the neighboring states have no restrictions on ammo sales so driving across the border for ammo would become as popular as driving across the border for cigarettes or whatever other commodity has been taxed excessively. Additionally the law would make all ammo sellers dispense their wares as "onesies" as most people would be restricted to buying less than a standard box of ammo.

As this would limit Joe Biden with his over/under shotgun to 4 rounds every 3 months I suppose it's not ALL bad but still... I note that the law also outright bans the sale of .223 and 5.56 calibers. I have not heard of a ban on 7.62 in any length possibly because that is also a popular hunting caliber so while your .308 is protected, there's a Kalashnikov loophole built in.

Counter proposal: Lets limit everyone not currently in detention to 2000 rounds/month in each caliber with no caliber off the list and no records of any sort kept. Since the buyers are not in detention, we presume their honesty and will accept a verbal statement that they're not buying extra bricks of .22 over the allowed limit.

But wait! Here's more! I propose that the gun bit be scrapped and this proposal be turned to the much more significant* issue of Global Warming. Why don't we simply limit automobile owners to 2 tanks of gasoline every 3 months? Think of the carbon we'd eliminate. I bet we could prevent the inundation of Manhattan by the rising seas just by doing this in New York alone. All in favor, raise your glasses and shout Huzza! All opposed, have another drink and reconsider your position.

Here's a map showing where the SAFE act passed in NY:
Perhaps the upstate folks would be willing to go down state for a civic work party and dig a moat between the red upper and the green lower, leave only a couple of bridges intact, and establish rigid border controls to include deporting from Albany all the carpetbagging downstate Townies. Then ask to split NY in two, New York City-State and New York. The City-State would keep the existing Senators since they elected them, and the new NY would get 2 new Senators, likely Republicans.

*The prez says so, who am I to argue?

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