My home state of New York is no stranger to knee-jerk gun restrictions, laws that do nothing more than inconvenience (at best) law abiding gun owners. Thanks to the newly rising murder rate in New York City, the Empire State is challenging California as the poster child for anti-pistol petulant pig-headedness. Like so many anti-gun states, New York’s gun control fervor is a big city thing. So when one of Poughkeepsie’s local councilmen stopped picking his feet long enough to propose a bill to further regulate law-abiding citizens and their firearms, local gun owners confronted him en masse at a local town meeting . . .
That’s the way the system works, right? Council members propose laws and regulations, residents respond, and Democracy lives on. That’s not how Councilman Joe Rich sees it. From the Poughkeepsie Journal:
Councilman Joe Rich, D-2nd Ward, said he felt attacked at the City of Poughkeepsie Common Council meeting on June 15 by members from theDutchess County chapter of the Shooter Committee On Political Education and supporters of the National Rifle Association, after SCOPE gave a presentation against the council’s proposed ordinance for mandatory storage of firearms. The proposal would require gun owners to lock up firearms in the City of Poughkeepsie.
“I didn’t mean to lose my temper, but felt it was abusive for them to come there in large numbers, wearing their shirts,” Rich said. “They were accusing us of taking their second amendment rights. I got upset, so I stood up — I don’t have to be intimidated by outside organizations like that.”
New York politicians in general and Democrats in particular like to believe they’re a separate class from the common folk. With a patronage-shaped lock on their political “machine,” they feel free to run their cities however they want. Elections are coronations – not as a job interview to do the People’s work.
I know — I’ve seen it firsthand from within the Democratic party in Westchester county while growing up. I’ve listened to the candidates talking behind closed doors about how best to dupe the population into liking them long enough to get into office. It’s all about power and control, and they hate it when anyone speaks up against them.
The ordinance would make mandatory gun storage “a blanket policy for everyone under all circumstances,” which could be detrimental in a number of situations, Emslie said.
Dutchess County SCOPE First Chair Jacqueline Emslie and Chapter President Christopher Zaleski gave a presentation during the meeting. Emslie, who is a gun owner and resident of the City of Poughkeepsie, said other SCOPE members from the City of Poughkeepsie were in attendance.
“We came to give information and present to the council, so they can make an informed decision if it does come up for a vote,” she said. “My whole goal was to give the council a resident gun owners’ perspective. This will have a negative effect on gun owners.”
Who are voters. And pay the salaries of the politicians who oppose them. Not that the right to keep and bear arms is subject to questions of social utility (as Bruce Krafft reminds us). FWIW.