Gunning for New York State
Some bills to dismantle sane gun safety regulations are hollow political stunts destined to go nowhere; some are imminent threats to human life. Fingers crossed, Erie County Republican Rep. Chris Collins’ Second Amendment Guarantee Act belongs in the first category. Chances are, it will never get a vote, much less a presidential signature.
But that’s no excuse for an abomination of this magnitude.
The bill, written by a man who claims to respect the rights of states to guide their own fate, wants to use the long arm of federal law to prohibit states like New York from taking any and all sensible steps to limit access to certain firearms.
In Collins’ cross hairs is the SAFE Act passed by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Cuomo in 2013. It bans assault weapons, strengthens background checks, requires mental health professionals to report potentially dangerous individuals so they cannot carry weapons, and more.
Collins, from his perch in Washington, would invalidate it all — and go on to strike all state gun laws that are any more stringent than federal law.
This is not only anathema to the many states with strong laws — and, not coincidentally, far fewer gun fatalities than their arm-everyone neighbors. It runs directly counter to the jurisprudence of late conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia.
As he wrote in his majority opinion in the landmark District of Columbia vs. Heller: “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
At least Collins is consistent in his glaring hypocrisy. This is the same man who back in March brokered a dirty deal by which the feds would have forced New York State taxpayers to swallow the full bill for upstate counties’ Medicaid expenses.
Be a champion for a smaller federal government, except when Washington can be used as a cynical cudgel against your political enemies. That’s Chris Collins’ only principle.