NY Bill A03371 - Gun Grabbers Get Greedy

NY Bill A-3372

The New York assembly entered a new bill which will make ALL "assault weapons" illegal to possess as of January 1, 2006.

Adds semiautomatic rifles, shotguns or pistols or a replica or a duplicate thereof manufactured on October 1, 1993 and semiautomatic rifles, shotguns or semiautomatic pistols lawfully possessed prior to September 14, 1994 to the definition of assault weapon; provides for the superintendent of the division of state police to accept surrendered assault weapons; declares such assault weapons surrendered a nuisance.

Why did they do this?

To repeal the grandfather clause in the definition of assault weapon which currently allows the possession of an assault weapon if the weapon was lawfully possessed prior to September fourteenth, nineteen hundred ninety-four or if the weapon was manufactured on of before October first, nineteen hundred ninety-three; to provide for the surrender and destruction of such weapons.

No, I mean WHY did they do this!

As nearly as I can tell, the NY assembly decided that, since the Feds allowed the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) to sunset, as it was originally intended to do if/when events demonstrated that it failed to serve its stated purpose of reducing crime and violence, their efforts to enforce a demonstrably ineffective law were justified because ... well, because they are empowered to arbitrarily make laws abridging the constitutional rights of their citizens.

You may think of this as the logical extention to absurdity of the "state's rights" movement.

I don't know enough about the background of this movement. I assume that some years back they enacted a state law which banned some 'assault weapons', but accepted others, base upon the year of manufacture.

You may recall that California enacted a similar law several years back, which required that 'some assault weapons' were permitted but the owners of these 'assault weapons' were required to REGISTER the firearms. Later, California decided to outlaw these allowed-but-registered firearms as well. Since many of them had been registered, the state had a handy list of "who had what" and it was easy to determine whether all previously legal 'assault weapons' had been turned in.

As far as I can tell, there is no provision in the proposed New York law to reimburse owners for their confiscated property. It seems to me that California at least paid a few cents on the dollar for the cost of the firearms, though I may be wrong.

Can anyone tell me whether these New York 'assault weapons' had been required to be registered? Is this, as it seems, a simple confiscation augmented by a state Registration list?