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The Sullivan Act and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen

On 23^rd June 2022 the US Supreme Court decided that the portion of the Sullivan Act requiring that a person show proper cause to obtain a license to carry a handgun outside of their home was unconstitutional. At the national level this declared that, under the 2^nd and 14^th Amendments, “may issue” licensing laws, in which the issuing authority had subjective discretion to issue licenses to carry weapons, were unconstitutional. As a result, New York and states using the “may issue” model must switch to the “shall issue” model, in which if applicants meet objectively defined criteria, they must be issued a license. These criteria are usually are a clean criminal record, ditto mental health, completion and passing class(es) on state gun laws and gun safety, and passing a shooting test.^*

The Sullivan Act was seen as a tool to “disarm an alleged Italian and immigrant criminal element,” which apparently a large minority, if not the majority, of New Yorkers defined as all immigrants, especially any who chose to arm themselves. The first conviction was under this law, was of an Italian immigrant who was packing a revolver to defend himself from the Black Hand, a gang of protection racketeers. The judge made it clear that that he believed, "It is unfortunate that this is the custom with you and your kind, and that fact, combined with your irascible nature, furnishes much of the criminal business in this country.”

“You got mud on your face, big disgrace
Somebody better put you back into your place”
  — Queen

The Sullivan Act was part of a long series of laws meant to keep minorities, immigrants. and members of the lower classes in their place. Sometimes they were as blatant as the Black Codes of the Ante-Bellum South, other times they were as subtle as “may issue” laws being used to deny licenses to people who just weren’t “special” enough to rate a license. Even today, gun control is pushed as keeping guns out of the hands of “racists”^** and other “deplorables.” and thus keeping us in our place. Hopefully, its overturning will deny those who consider themselves our bosses a tool to not only weaken us but keep us turned against each other.

* Although Texas went to Constitutional Carry in 2021 there is still a Texas handgun carry license available for anyone who feels they need it. If the tests to qualify are anything like those in place before we went to Constitutional Carry, if you can’t pass the written part, you are too dumb to be trusted with a gun and if you can’t pass the shooting part, you can’t shoot straight enough to be allowed to carry a weapon for self-defense.

** As far as I can tell the term “racist” is being used by many in the Left to mean “dirty, bad person who disagrees with us.”

Albert Perez
[email protected]

Prior to going to "Shall Issue" concealed carry in the 1990s, Wyoming had what I called at the time "Sheriff's Discretion" concealed carry. The 23 sheriffs ran the gamut. One or two required a psychological evaluation of the applicant. Another only issued permits to people who had contributed to his re-election campaign. etc., etc. There was no rule on whether your permit was good in the next county over, or even in town. The situation was such a mess that the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police (WASCOP), normally opposed to gun liberalization, backed the reform. — Editor

Our own good

There are about 20 million AR style rifles in circulation in the US, plus AR style pistols, plus AR style shotguns. There are several million AK style semi auto rifles, pistols, and shotguns also in circulation. This excludes other designs popular with people who know guns. They are owned by several million people. a few dozen people have horrifically abused semi auto weapons, yet some people call for banning them for the millions who are not abusing their right to keep and bear arms.

Most murders in the US are committed with pistols, knives, clubs, and hands and feet. Most are committed by people of the victims' race. There is some evidence that some murders are by white police to keep Black people and Latinos "in their place," but that is a minority. Currently the majority of murders are committed by young men as part of gang wars or fights over drugs, either killing each other, intended robbery victims, or innocent bystanders.

I am not saying that people abusing semiauto rifles and racist murders are not issues, they are large ones. But when all is said and done the laws being proposed will maybe reduce murders by about 200, maybe 300 a year and our misleaders will say there are still 16,000 or so murders a year that need to be prevented and that the only way to do so is to strip the people of even more of our rights. Then when we go fug buck crazy from having lost our freedom and violence explodes the police will act more repressively, all for our own good.

Albert Perez
[email protected]

Biden Has No Right To Declare a National Climate Emergency

https://townhall.com/columnists/davidharsanyi/2022/07/22/biden-has-no-right-to-declare-a-national-climate-emergency-n2610629

Impeach his ass.

They went after Trump for less.

Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]