Pataki: Sentencing
New Yorkers to death

? 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Call it a reasonable compromise, call it
“statesmanship,” or call it an act of genuine
heartfelt concern — but whatever its label, New
York Republican Gov. George Pataki’s signature
on a new “sweeping” statewide gun control
measure on Thursday was little more than a
death sentence for scores of residents.

And it left me wondering how many more
innocent Americans will be killed by
better-armed thugs who could give a rat’s rear
about gun control laws before we, as a nation,
realize that disarming ourselves in the face of
such odds is utopian at best and downright
stupid at worst.

The new gun control law Pataki signed
yesterday contains a wish list of politically
correct ideals about guns in the U.S. these days:

There is a requirement for all retail gun
dealers to provide trigger locks
(preferably ones that actually work) for all
purchases;

Dealers will have to test fire each weapon
and send a shell casing from each gun sold
to the state police’s forensic lab so guns
can be “tracked” and checked against those
used in crimes;

All so-called “assault weapons” (which are
really just semi-automatic rifles) banned
under a 1994 federal law are now officially
banned in New York, possession or sale of
which is punishable by up to seven years
in jail;

And the new law raises the legal age to
buy a handgun from 18 to 21.

Pataki, in defense of this shameful cave-in to the
leftist anti-gun wackos, justified his actions by
saying, in essence, “Hey — this new law has
nothing in it harmful for lawful gun owners, so
don’t you worry.”

Never mind that with each new gun control law,
swaths of citizens become criminals or have the
potential to be criminals with the stroke of a
pen. Good grief, governor. Criminalizing an
action creates — anybody? — criminals, often of
previously “law abiding persons.” Are we
saying that no one in New York owns a
now-banned “assault rifle,” bought legally –
perhaps on Wednesday?

Worse — ironically — Pataki chose the site in
which to sign the bill foolishly. He signed it
during a ceremony held at the Garden City
railroad station where Colin Ferguson went on a
shooting rampage on a Long Island Rail Road
train in 1993, killing six people.

This new law now makes it harder for ordinary
New Yorkers to defend themselves against
future Colin Fergusons.

But, if New York City had a concealed carry law,
perhaps Ferguson would never have shown up
on that train because he would have known in
advance that a great many passengers likely
would have been armed themselves. Statistics
prove that armed communities are more polite,
less violent communities; new studies also show
that such PC laws like the “Brady law” have
done little or no good.

There is a fair amount of foolishness and
hypocrisy in this new law that, again, needs to
be defined, I’m sorry to say:

Regarding the latest leftist gun cause,
trigger locks — there is no one who can
righteously claim that they will prevent
100 percent of the gun accidents that
happen in this country. And if they can’t,
then what’s the point of passing the law?
Recommend them, offer them, talk them
up — but to “mandate” them assumes that
“all will be well.” It won’t because they
aren’t foolproof and if that’s the case, then
mandating them is pointless.

I find it remarkably na?ve and politically
dishonest for politicians to ban so-called
“assault weapons” when virtually no
violent crime is committed with such a
weapon. I also find it repulsive that
establishment media and political types
insist on calling a semi-automatic rifle by a
wholly inaccurate name — just to whip up
support for “the cause.”

Pataki, who is commander-in-chief of the
New York National Guard, with his
signature on this bill, just made it illegal for
18-year-old Guard privates to legally buy
exactly the kind of handgun the Guard will
issue him when he is deployed for combat
or domestic unrest in the state. That is
worse than simple naivet?; that is gross
stupidity.

I’d like to know why Pataki wants to fill
his state police forensics lab with tens of
thousands of shell casings, because
criminals won’t give a damn how many of
them are “on file” — such laws don’t deter
such criminals. And what if the gun is
stolen from a law-abiding owner — will
Pataki want to jail those innocent people
who were victimized by the theft? The only
reason to have such a shell casing forensic
inventory is to hold someone responsible for a
crime a) they didn’t commit; and b) they
didn’t instigate. “Tracing” the guns back to
— whom — the criminal; the guy who stole
the weapon? What is the point of that –
except to blame it on somebody else and
hold somebody else responsible.

Such notions in this new law may “feel good”
and I’m sure Republican Pataki thinks he’s
“done something worthwhile.”

But he hasn’t. Instead, he’s just opened the door
to more deaths of innocent people who, by
governmental decree, continue to be cheated
out of their right to stay alive and protect
themselves. Pataki would have been better off
signing a “criminal control law” that wipes clean
any current laws preventing citizens from
arming themselves for protection.

But what the hell, Pataki’s got armed protection,
doesn’t he? Some of his protectors likely carry
pistols adult young men — and potential
Guardsmen — cannot buy and “assault
weapons” ordinary New Yorkers cannot own or
sell.

Don’t forget to tell them to “lock ‘em up,”
governor.