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The strange birth of NY’s gun laws
NY Post ^ | January 15, 2012 | MICHAEL A. WALSH

Posted on 01/16/2012 2:57:47 PM PST by neverdem

Recent months have seen a former Marine from Indiana, a Tea Party activist from California and a nurse from Tennessee all arrested and charged in New York City for possession of firearms they had legal permits to carry back home. All were “nabbed” when they naively sought to check the weapon with security.

These innocents fell afoul of the nation’s toughest gun laws. But few New Yorkers know how those laws came to be.

The father of New York gun control was Democratic city pol "Big Tim" Sullivan — a state senator and Tammany Hall crook, a criminal overseer of the gangs of New York.

In 1911 — in the wake of a notorious Gramercy Park blueblood murder-suicide — Sullivan sponsored the Sullivan Act, which mandated police-issued licenses for handguns and made it a felony to carry an unlicensed concealed weapon.

This was the heyday of the pre-Prohibition gangs, roving bands of violent toughs who terrorized ethnic neighborhoods and often fought pitched battles with police. In 1903, the Battle of Rivington Street pitted a Jewish gang, the Eastmans, against the Italian Five Pointers. When the cops showed up, the two underworld armies joined forces and blasted away, resulting in three deaths and scores of injuries. The public was clamoring for action against the gangs.

Problem was the gangs worked for Tammany. The Democratic machine used them as shtarkers (sluggers), enforcing discipline at the polls and intimidating the opposition. Gang leaders like Monk Eastman were even employed as informal “sheriffs,” keeping their turf under Tammany control.

The Tammany Tiger needed to rein in the gangs without completely crippling them. Enter Big Tim with the perfect solution: Ostensibly disarm the gangs — and ordinary citizens, too — while still keeping them on the streets.

In fact, he gave the game away during...

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: New York
KEYWORDS: banglist; bigtimsullivan; guncontrol; sullivanact; sullivanlaw; tammanyhall
You can avoid scrolling right & left at the Post's printer friendly website by just copying all of it. Then post it in any thread's comment. That will make it format in a top down fashion. Just don't complete posting it.
1 posted on 01/16/2012 2:57:49 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Noo Yawk Setee should have all Federal finding revoked until they restore Constitutional rights under the 2nd Amendment.


2 posted on 01/16/2012 3:04:36 PM PST by Old Sarge (RIP FReeper Skyraider (1930-2011) - You Are Missed)
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To: cyborg; Clemenza; Cacique; NYCVirago; The Mayor; Darksheare; hellinahandcart; Chode; ...
Anti-gun bills trigger concern (Gungrabbers are back in Albany, NY.)

Councilmen Oppose City Gun Resolution (NYC Council opposes concealed carry reciprocity, H.R. 822.)

FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.

3 posted on 01/16/2012 3:14:40 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem

Never been to NYC, and never intend to ever go there.......this just solidifies why.


4 posted on 01/16/2012 3:37:41 PM PST by JohnKinAK
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To: JohnKinAK

I wouldn’t go into NYC WITHOUT a gun! Guess I won’t be going there either...Where I live (in New York state’s flyover country) when we hear gunfire, it is friendly fire!


5 posted on 01/16/2012 3:48:10 PM PST by Larry R. Johnson (Power to the people!)
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To: neverdem
Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, were disarmed, which solved another problem: Gangsters had been bitterly complaining to Tammany that their victims sometimes shot back at them.

As always, criminals are not the ones disarmed by gun control laws.

6 posted on 01/16/2012 3:55:59 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.)
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To: neverdem

I have referenced the criminal connection to NYC “Sullivan Law” in several threads.

Amazed to see a NYC paper dare mention this, even in such an abbreviated form!


7 posted on 01/16/2012 4:42:23 PM PST by Loyal Sedition
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To: neverdem

Big bump.


8 posted on 01/16/2012 5:00:13 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: Inyo-Mono

I find the line about the toughs sewing their pockets shut telling, both sides of the “Law” were criminal gangs!

Planting “Evidence” was so common even thugs figured out ways to reduce it.

Some thing do not seem to have changed much.


9 posted on 01/16/2012 5:11:05 PM PST by Loyal Sedition
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To: Loyal Sedition
Amazed to see a NYC paper dare mention this, even in such an abbreviated form!

The NY Post is a mostly conservative tabloid.

10 posted on 01/16/2012 7:51:53 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Old Sarge
Criminal activity linked to prohibition has been an excuse to ban firearms which continues to be used to this day.

Alcohol prohibition was used to pass the NFA of '34 by 'getting guns out of the hands of mobsters', and subsequent gun control measures have generally been linked to high profile homicides or crminal activity tied to drug prohibition.

All of it flies in the face of the 2nd Amendment, regardless of the rationale used to promote it.

11 posted on 01/16/2012 8:30:43 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: neverdem

Thanks for the ping!


12 posted on 01/16/2012 9:22:34 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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