Posted on 04/08/2014 7:09:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Though he still has constitutional objections to the NY SAFE Act, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, said Monday that residents should comply with the law’s provisions, including a requirement that guns categorized as assault weapons be registered with authorities.
“Fundamentally it is the law, and I would encourage people to respect that law,” Reed said.
But Reed wasn’t unequivocal.
“At the same time, I understand that this is an infringement upon our constitutional freedoms, and I would encourage people to make that determination (themselves),” he said.
The deadline for owners of weapons the law considers assault weapons, including the popular AR-15 rifle, to register their guns with police is April 15.
Representatives of New York gun rights groups, including the Shooters Committee on Political Education, which organized a large Albany protest last week against the law, have said they expect owners of those weapons to ignore the requirement.
But those who fail to register under the law could face a misdemeanor charge and lose the guns they didn’t register, unless police decide the failure was unintentional.
In that case, the owner would be given 30 days to comply.
According to the Associated Press, there’s also a provision for a felony charge for an unregistered weapon under the law, and the determination of which charge to file would be up to prosecutors.
The SAFE Act also expands the definition of assault weapons to include semi-automatic weapons with detachable magazines and one military-style feature, such as a collapsible stock or flash suppressor. Previous state law required two military-style features for the classification.
Reed said he believes laws that attempt to reduce gun violence by regulating the guns themselves are misguided.
Citing the recent shooting at Fort Hood, the second mass shooting there in five years, he said the focus should be on why people commit acts of violence.
“You have to go to the mental health issue, you have to go to the criminals that are often behind these situations,” he said.
He said his support of Second Amendment rights to gun ownership remains unwavering.
“To me, it’s an individual, constitutional fundamental freedom that needs to be defended,” he said.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some people rented storage space in a part of the country that is still the United States, like, say, PA and stored their weapons there.
Reed said he believes laws that attempt to reduce gun violence by regulating the guns themselves are misguided.
Essentially he wants to regulate people... and I don't believe he means that in the defining sense of, say, a Well-regulated Militia.
FUTR
This bonehead’s double-talk is worse than Carney’s. what a load of crap.
An unconstitutional law is not a law.
And this bonehead’s “unwavering support of the 2nd Amendment” is not so unwavering.
Throw the bum out, New York!
Fricking pansy, ball-less RINO
Reed is an idiot, I wish I never helped him 4 years ago. He may lose to the democrat this year and ding crap like this doesn’t help his chances of winning not with the atmosphere here in NY over the unSAFE Act,
‘Though he still has constitutional objections to the NY SAFE Act, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, said Monday that residents should comply with the law’s provisions, including a requirement that guns categorized as assault weapons be registered with authorities’
Well, ‘nuts’ to that.
Or as the bard said, “up your nose with a rubber hose!”
What if they passed a law and no one obeyed? What if they passed a law that required 10’s of thousands of people, maybe 100’s of thousands to register certain types of guns and those people simply refused? I’ve been reading a number of threads about gun registration and magazine limits suggesting many different scenarios from the enforcement side and from the resistance side. Can a mass act of civil disobedience break the momentum of these totalitarians?
How do the cops know who’s “holding”? If they don’t know, what measures can they legally take to find out? They need at least probable cause to get a warrant to search your home. If you’ve kept quiet in any public forum and gun sales data are not available, how would the cops develop probable cause?
Assuming, for the sake of argument that they can piece together a number of cases by investigative methods, what do they do next? Is refusal to register a felony or misdemeanor? Do they need to go before a grand jury to prosecute? Or can the local detective sign a complaint?
OK. We’ve gotten this far. Now comes crunch time. They’ve issued a warning notice that you have so many days to register. The time has expired. A warrant is issued for your arrest. They come to your house. You commit a simple act of civil disobedience and tell them that you have no such weapons and you do not intend to register any such weapons. They take you “downtown” and they book you. You make bail or are released on your own recognizance.
You prepare for trial. What is the likelihood of having the charges thrown out as unconstitutional? You make your pre-trial motion. The judge, being a good employee of the same authority that is prosecuting you, denies the motion, citing the facial, presumptive validity of legislative action. The regulation of your gun rights under the constitution are a reasonable, measured response to a matter of public safety, or so they say.
You are convicted. If you have no prior record, you probably get probation and a fine.
OK. Now what? Has there been any great public outcry or impact? Does the media pay any attention? I think not. Not unless this scenario happens on a grand scale. But without that first step of probable cause, the prosecutorial authorities are not going to have a large number of cases.
The answer might be something bold: all those gun owners would publicly proclaim their ownership of the weapons, after losing them on a fishing trip. They would state their refusal to comply due the violation of their 2A rights. That would open the floodgates. Would the law enforcement apparatus pick and choose who they are going to prosecute? Or would they have to charge everyone and thus, completely overwhelm the system?
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!
If you sleep on your rights, you lose them. Freedom requires CONSTANT WORK! As RR reminded us, we’re just ONE GENERATION from losing those rights and those on the DARK SIDE NEVER SLEEP. They’re ALWAYS at work boring like the termites and vermin they are.
Suggest you good folks up there in the Empire state, Connecticut and everywhere else — because YOU have termites as well even if they are currently under control — get busy and select and get fully behind OTHER good guys these next election cycles. Then watch them like a hawk. If they drift off course, find new ones.
If the ballot box doesn’t get the job done, it’s either slavery or the cartridge box! No middle ground!
Uhm...er...excuse me there mr Reed, but what was the first shooter's profession?
Maybe we need a third shooting at Fort Hood for you to get a clue that our military should be armed at all times.
Another thing, violence has been around since the beginning of time. A recent occurrence would be Cain and Able.
Reed, you're an idiot.
That, my friends, is professional pussy-footing.
“If we only give the Germans the Sudetenland...”
Well said.
“They’ve issued a warning notice that you have so many days to register. The time has expired. A warrant is issued for your arrest. They come to your house. “
They never get to the house- they get as far as the sidewalk and that`s it.
Just like we don did to them during prohibition-
We drove em off then and we`ll do it agin coz we got 500,000 armed people up here with 5 million weapons and millions of ammo.
We are ready for these SOB`s anytime anywhere-
as soon as one house we sound the alarm
we spot em via cel n radio
- we all go there and surround the f`in sob`s
coz our the sheriff will lead us/-
Get ready for a mountain time shoootin war you never laid eyes on since 1814 u`pn here coz we are sick of these commies— and we are trained to kill commies from our youth as marksmen
wait n see for the Sons of Liberty!!
Our sights is wetted.
I ain`t f`in kiddin` neither.
The way it got repealed was good people standing up to it and disobeying it in massive civil disobedience - not giving into it and obeying it because it was "the law".
Peace in our time...
If there’s a better example of a congressman talking out of both sides of his face at once, I’ve never seen it.
Maybe he’ll take Boehner’s job as speaker someday.
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