I hope you’ve heard about Governor Cuomo’s plan to deal with the New York City COVID-19 crisis: grab ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) from up-state hospitals and ship them to NYC.
If Cuomo can get away with taking equipment — which he’s said “the entire state of New York” needs — to benefit New York City, what else can he rationalize? Be sure to check out his garden hose analogy.
Cuomo says his house is on fire. So he’s sending National Guard troops — wait…where do demographics show most NYNG troops come from? — to steal said neighbor’s garden hose because his own house is engulfed.
But it’s all good, because he promises to pay for the hose later if he doesn’t return it (how do you return used, contaminated PPE?). Too bad about the neighbor’s burnt-out house and the dead family inside. At least their hose will be paid for.
Now, we all know that Fredo’s big brother isn’t exactly a friend of the Second Amendment. Suppose he were to apply this same rationale to firearms. Imagine him declaring the rising NYC crime wave to be another COVID19-related emergency.
Using the ventilator and PPE precedent, he could sign another executive order directing any surviving Guard units to confiscate firearms from upstaters and other unfavored deplorables (the ventilators and PPE are private property in private hospitals), to better arm NYC law enforcement as they deal with the city’s “unmanageable” crime.
By Cuomo’s standards, that isn’t even an uncompensated taking, because he’s promising to return them at some vague, undefined future time when the guns are no longer needed. That, or pay for them. Maybe. Eventually.
If the courts allow Cuomo’s medical gear grab, there is absolutely nothing he can’t appropriate for the state. And if he follows through on the move, no Vegas oddsmaker will make book on his chances of survival if one or two up-staters die for lack of an stolen ventilator.