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NY’s $28m SAFE Act Handgun Registry Database Revealed

Robert Farago - comments No comments

 New York pistol/revolver license application (courtesy troopers.ny.gov)

As regular readers no doubt know, New York state legislators had exactly twenty-minutes to read the hugely unconstitutional SAFE Act before voting on it. On Tuesday, Governor Cuomo made the startling admission (to some) that he hadn’t read the bill either (before waving the normal three-day “cooling off” period and signing it). Even more despicably, Andy blamed “bad” bits of the bill on Mayor Bloomberg and the Brady Campaign—indicating that the Governor’s minions has surrendered legislative power to the civilian disarmament industry. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that the SAFE Act is an expensive turkey. The AP reports on the bottom line for one part of the Empire State gun grab . . .

New York will spend $27.74 million to develop a statewide electronic handgun permit database as part of its new gun control law, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday.

Silver said the measure in the tentative state budget will create a central database of handgun permit records now kept at the county level. The new database will allow faster statewide cross-checking with records of crimes and involuntary commitments to mental health facilities.

Let’s set aside questions of waste, fraud, abuse, inefficiency, unconstitutionality, lack of necessity and lack of transparency for a moment. Let’s think about New York’s handgun permitting process.

If you want to keep (never mind bear) a handgun in New York, you have to register with the State. You can apply through all the various counties. Click here for the handgun/pistol app, and see above.

To exercise your Constitutionally protected individual right to keep and bear arms—recently affirmed by the Supreme Court’s Heller decision—you have to list a reason why you need a gun, provide four character references and state whether or not you have ever suffered from any mental illness.

Note: not whether or not you’ve been hospitalized for mental illness or the “involuntary commitments” mentioned above. Whether or not you’ve ever had any mental illness. So if you’ve taken ever taken anti-depressants or (perhaps) sleep aids, you could well be SOL.

Any New York pistol permit applicant who once had mental health issues but thought they were mentally stable enough to protect their lives and the lives of their loved ones by exercising their Constitutionally protected RKBA and checked the “wrong” box has committed a “crime punishable by fine, imprisonment or both.”

Well that sucks, both in terms of those who applied and those who will never apply for fear that old Prozac prescription could land them in jail. Of course, that personal health information is protected by HIPPA, right? In post-Newtownian New York, with the advent of this $28m (for starters) program to centralize, computerize and cross-check mental health records, I wouldn’t count on it.

In other words, by its very existence, a program dressed-up as spree killer prevention will be used to deny American citizens their civil and human right to armed self-defense. And I haven’t even mentioned (yet) the fact that the new and improved SAFE Act handgun database makes outright confiscation even easier.

Sound crazy? After Newtown, the Providence City Council passed a resolution (unanimously) to ban all semi-automatic firearms within the City. Yes, handguns too. Rhode Island has preemption, so the city ordinance doesn’t have the force of law. But it passed. If such a thing happened in New York, the cops would know exactly where all the guns are. How great is that?

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “NY’s $28m SAFE Act Handgun Registry Database Revealed”

  1. So he’s autistic and/or asbergers… and no one wants to talk about the likely cocktail of government-approved/mandated psychotropic drugs he was likely on?

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  2. If it is ran anything like canada’s registry this 28 million will end up costing half a billion dollards if not more.

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  3. (From State Attorney’s Office statement – http://www.ct.gov/despp/cwp/view.asp?Q=521730&A=4226 ) :
    “The police found a loaded 12-gauge shotgun in the passenger compartment of the car the shooter drove to the school. The shotgun was moved by police from the passenger compartment of the car to the trunk for safekeeping.”

    What?

    Why in the hell would the police move an item from one section of the crime scene / evidence gathering area, to another one? They wouldn’t. They’d record the placement of all evidence via photograph and then take the evidence into custody. That would be like moving a bloody steak knife from the dead attemtped rapists’ hands to his back pocket for “safe keeping”.

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  4. I have to give much praise to Comrade Cuomo for this wonderful piece of paper. It would make for fine a$$ wiping material after a big lunch.

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  5. Who cares what pattern their swat team is wearing? I have a few pieces of Multicam, and I’m not militarized.

    These guys are going after a violent criminal that has already shot someone. If that was my job, I’d want to have the best gear at my disposal, and look as intimidating as possible. They are stil LE, and subject to the same regs as officers not fully kitted up. Now if they violate laws, or fabricate evidence, I’ll be the first to call them out. But wearing camo? Who cares.

    I keep hearing how we as gun owners may face the same criminal element as LE, and I agree. We demand to have the same tools to protect ourselves as the police, and I agree. Now does that make us militarized since we have black rifles? Or a multicam chest rig? I’ve seen local 3-gun shooters, and other non-LE shooters taking carbine classes that were all kitted up. I wouldn’t call them militarized. The latter group was learning to efficiently run a rifle to better protect themselves, I would expect a LE SRT/SWAT to be outfitted to best accomplish that task.

    Enough of the cop bashing, especially when they are doing nothing but their jobs. It really makes this site look bad.

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  6. Where was the famous AR in all this? I’ve been seeing references on other articles responses that there was no AR involved. I’ve mentally attributed this to wacko tin foil hatters. Is the above list complete? Where is the AR that spurred the latest attack on scary black rifles and standard capacity magazines? Ok TTAG, what’s the truth about this? Was an AR used or not? What is your level of certainty with your answer? Thanks all.

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    • I am pretty sure it says in the pdf’s that they found him dead in the school with the AR near him with how many bullets left in it and the 30rd mags he brought with. He supposedly killed himself with the 10mm glock.

      This from the 1st PDF ( The Governor’s statement)

      The shooter took his own life with a single shot from a Glock 10 mm handgun. He also had a loaded 9mm Sig Sauer P226 handgun on his person. Recovered from the person of the shooter, in addition to more ammunition for the handguns, were three, 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster, each containing 30 rounds. Located in the area of the shootings were six additional 30-round magazines containing 0, 0, 0, 10, 11, and 13 live rounds respectively. One-hundred-and-fifty-four spent .223 casings were recovered from the scene.

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        • Perhaps… However, laws of evidence and investigation don’t deal in “perhaps”, they deal in facts or what can be proven by facts. I suppose I’ll wait for additional information that accounts for those 8 cartridges.

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        • Per the press release, there were 14 left in the mag still attached to the Bushmaster and one in the chamber. That’s 15 more. By my math (assuming he loaded each of the mags you tally with the full 30), that’s 161 spent to 154 recovered. 7 missing = not recovered or not loaded? Not vouching for the reports’ accuracy, just saying the numbers sort of work if you count what was still in the gun.

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  7. How illegal is it to print one of these out, write a big “**** YOU” on it and send it to the pieces of **** in NY that get paid to process these things?

    Possibly with drawings or shopped photos of Bloomberg and Cuomo on their same sex honeymoon night.

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  8. Whether or not you’ve been fired from a job is relevant…how, exactly? That’s scary. They want to know if you’ve been fired from a place of employment. Shoot, what if you were fired from mcdonald’s as a kid or something? That’s absolutely insane!

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  9. How long ago did the shooting happen ? (Yes, I know) Jeez, if this is the best they can do after all this time, then we will be waiting forever for the “official” report and analysis. After all, the suspect is known – and dead. So is the only other person with any responsibility – his mother.

    Trust us, we’re the professionals.

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  10. So, he’s autistic and/or asbergers… and yet no one wants to talk about the c0cktail of government-approved/mandated psychotropic drugs he was likely on.

    Note: My first comment attempt was spam filtered because I spelled c0cktail correctly.

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  11. As far as the total lack of privacy for handgun owners of the State of NY, the state-wide database in itself changes little. What’s more “interesting” is that permits will be renewable every 5 years now, instead of being given for life. In some counties the judges stamp most permits with “limited to hunting and target practice”, but in a number of counties the judges have been easy-going enough about giving unrestricted permits, and once someone received such a permit, it was good for life. If the renewal process gets pushed up to the State level, perhaps to be done by the State police, I wonder how many unrestricted permits will turn into restricted ones at the renewal time – my paranoid suspicion is that this what the database is really for. But I haven’t followed the SAFE Act in enough detail to know if that’s just me or whether this is really what’s in store. Nor do I know where and how the renewal process will be handled, at the county level or by the State police, and if done by the State police, whether it will be a simple background check or something more, where the could alter the original decision of the issuing county judge as to the restrictions on the permit. I guess I just don’t trust the State of NY not to use every means possible to reduce gun rights.

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  12. I remember an old-timer telling me in upstate New York back in the 80’s that some county judges would issue permits to applicants 16 years of age and older in the really old days (1930’s, 40’s, 50’s? not sure), and that some kids would carry a gun to school once they got a permit. Don’t know how true that story is, but things must’ve really been different in the old days.

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  13. I’m a Liberal (actual, not a modern Statist) and I am pissed.

    Wording matters, due to inferences drawn and implications made. To wit, I just heard on the radio about the “arsenal” A.L. “owned.”

    He didn’t flippin’ own sh!t, damn it, except in the “possession is nine tenths…” sense. The laws work, irrespective of his mother’s poor choice to store her stuff in the closet.

    He stole it. As in if I steal a truck tractor and ram a school bus, people have no cause to whine that I shouldn’t have had a CDL or the ability to own a dangerous vehicle. I wouldn’t own it, any more than that a$$wipe owned “his arsenal.”

    Thrice-cursed morons.

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  14. Inaccuarate, hurried, biased reporting coupled with the chaotic situation is the breeding ground for most conspiracy theories. The theories are just as inaccurate, hurried and biased as the reporting. It’s a race between the media and the theorists to see who can get it the wrongest the firstest.

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  15. It could be argued… that the image of a villain surrounded by guns furthers the idea that guns are evil. That would make the Russian poster MORE incendiary to gun rights activists than the American version.

    OR…

    It’s just a movie poster. Relax dude. 🙂

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  16. I have read a couple of articles this morning and they say the investigation is not complete and it will take a few more months to do so. It seems a little convenient that they would release partial information at this time with all the laws they are looking to pass in the next couple months. I dont know how these investigations work but shouldnt they complete it and double if not triple check the facts before releasing any info?

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  17. Bulletproof vest? The media never even read the last paragraph on the Governor’s statement, to wit:

    “The released search warrants were obtained on December 14, 15, 16, 2012, within a short time of the shootings. Subsequent investigation revealed that shootings took place in two of the classrooms, not three, and that the shooter was not wearing a bullet-proof vest, nor was he a teenager. ”

    Nice reportage – journalistic incompetence is the norm nowadays.

    The Kid was definitely suicidal, but decided to take his mother and her “other children” with him.

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  18. I was seriously blown away by the graphics. Too bad you probably have to be running a pair of $500 cards in SLI to run it on max.

    And come on Nick, FIFA and NHL have still been great all these years! Unless you count EA Sports separately.

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  19. From: gregg [mailto:[email protected]]
    Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 12:29 PM
    To: ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]’; ‘[email protected]
    Subject: Colorado legislature anti-gun laws

    Dear Colorado Legislators,

    After reading your new proposed anti-gun laws I felt compelled to send you my views on the matter. I admit that I’m a small business owner and employ less than 10 people; however, I still have a voice.

    My wife and I have two sons and their families that live in Colorado and they have been trying to convince us to move our business there. We have many customers from Colorado for our stock customizations that it made a lot of business sense to relocate from Texas in order to be closer to most of our customers and family. We had also anticipated expanding our business once we relocated to Colorado and have just started to put our services on-line to attract more customers.

    We have visited the Estes Park area numerous times in preparation for purchasing land and have been pursuing establishing our business there.

    These laws, in my opinion are totally miss-guided, simply window dressing, delusional on the part of legislators, and do nothing to remove the guns from the hands of criminals who already have the weapons and does nothing to prevent mentally disturbed individuals from obtaining and using weapons of any kind.

    How many more children have to die before you pursue the criminals and mentally disturbed individuals more aggressively?

    When will you pass laws that force criminals to turn in their weapons instead of criminalizing law abiding citizens? Yes, forcing criminals to turn in their guns sounds like a joke; however, your track record in reducing criminal usage of guns is miserable.

    Even if you do not pass the current proposed anti-gun legislation we feel the Colorado legislature has demonstrated its intent and position, therefore, we believe that it will continue to pursue miss-guided and delusional laws of this nature in the future.

    With the news of the Colorado legislature bringing these anti-gun laws into act we now believe that the attitude of the Colorado legislature toward the 2nd Amendment and the lawful rights of gun owners is such that we cannot continue the process of relocating our business there.

    Therefore, we are abandoning our efforts to relocate and expand our business in Colorado. We have been discussing these issues with many Outfitters in other states explaining that we will not be able to support them in Colorado as previously planned plus we will be presenting our views to other gunsmith business owners when we meet later this year.

    Sincerely,
    Gregg Sterner
    G & M GunSmiths
    Carrollton, TX

    Reply
  20. Has anyone played BF3 on both PC & console? Is it significantly different? I currently play BF3 on PS3, BLOPS2 on XBox (because that’s what my son has) and Arma2 on PC. If BF4 is going to be better on PC than console, I may have to buy my son a gaming computer. 🙂
    BTW – I *love* MW3 multiplayer – was playing that exclusively for months before I traded in COD:BO2 on PS3 (which literally crashed my PS3) in for the XBox360 version because I got sick of waiting for the PS3 version to get fixed. I just can’t fathom a game manufacturer putting a game out that literally damages your system, and not figuring out and fixing the issue for months. With that said, I like FPSs too much to stop buying them!

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  21. “…1600 rounds of various caliber ammo inside Lanza’s two-story home.”

    I love how they try to make these look like large numbers. 1600 rounds of ammo really isn’t that much to a gun enthusiast. Consider if a person shoots at a range twice per month. It’s not uncommon to blow off 100-200 or more rounds per session, so that equates to somewhere between 2500 and 5000 rounds per year. In earlier days when ammo was available and cheap in bulk stocking up on 5000 rounds for cheap prices simply meant that you had a years worth of ammo. Not too unlike someone buying a crapload of golf balls for the upcoming season.

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  22. > Enumerated Rights

    But the rights found “in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights” are far more important than those explicitly enumurated. The 2012 Democratic Party National Platform says so:

    Protecting A Woman’s Right to Choose. The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

    If it’s OK to violate the explicitly enumerated rights of “only” 45 million (or whatever the actual number is) of Americans who own guns, then why should I give a crap about the 50 million women who have had an abortion in the 40 years since Roe v Wade?

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  23. No love for BF: Vietnam? Anybody?

    I finally got ArmA 2, now I just need to figure out how to control the stupid thing. Tutorial and controls are… lacking.

    Reply
  24. They might look into changing some of the
    tablets and found they contained ingredients different from the one you started with.
    The latter’s also susceptible to recognizing accidental bumps as input, adding to our impression that you should look for, CIPA and MIPA. A panel of health experts on Friday rejected the latest offering submitted for federal approval: an antidepressant drug that failed to pullwomenout ofdepressioncould work as their alternative to farmacia on line. The account is based largely on papers from Theodor Morrell, Hitler’s personal
    doctor who was nicknamed the King of.

    Reply
  25. I’m angry. I have the tools and experience needed to protect the kids I work with every day, but my school is the least gun-friendly place I’ve ever been. I don’t know what I would do if something terrible like Sandy Hook happened at my school. To know I had the equipment and desire necessary to prevent or limit such a terrible deed, but was unable to do so because of an asinine expectation of peaceful behavior, would be a truly awful feeling. I pray it never happens. Not to me and my kids or anyone else.

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  26. There is a procedure for overturning or amending the 2nd or any other amendment to Our Constitution but those who oppose the 2nd amendment know that it will be ever so much easier getting 5 justices on the Supreme Court to rule in their favor rather than 2/3’s of the states.

    Look back and see how often THEY have depended on the few judges to enact THEIR platform goals rather than defending those ideas in front of the voters.

    In fact it has come down to only one Supreme Court Justice. Its Judge Kennedy’s world and we are just small cogs in it.

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  27. I own a pt-92af,bought it in 1986 never have had a problem with it after over 30,000 rounds fired,never been back to factory for anything.Will shoot anything I feed it,factory loads,my reloads,+P,it justs shoots.Even carried it when I was a Deputy Sheriff,I am confident that it would not have let me down.Only thing I changed was the factory wood grips,put some rubber grips on it.Very accurate,reliable to a T.Will never part with it.Keep your powder dry.Thank-You.

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  28. Point of clarification. Maryland has not issued a permit to carry concealed since 1972. It’s a permit to wear transport or carry a handgun. Like Connecticut, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Minnesota, it’s a license to carry a handgun…. Concealed or not.

    A MD carry license does authorize someone to carry switchblades and other similar type of weapons concealed, as a MD permit acts and an exemption to the criminal penalty for concealed carry of these weapons.

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  29. This is beyond insane. As a sign I saw once said, “Screw us and we multiply”. These government goons have forgotten where they live, or they think they’ve got enough of their “sheeple programming” in place. This is going to get ugly.

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  30. Gaming isn’t a problem…now, if ALL you do is play games and you had no parents…that’s another story..just like if all you did was watch tv and never went outside…etc…

    Anyway, there are always going to be psychopaths…there always have been and always will be. You can either give up your freedoms and cower in the corner like a bitch, or you can make some laws that protect people from psychopaths (like arming teachers). You can’t eliminate or screen out psychopaths. Just not possible, some will always exist, sorry.

    Now, that said, there is an eerie deal where as far as I can tell, all the younger shooting spree people in the last 15 years that I can find, were all on SSRI drugs (where the data has been released). Can’t find any info on Lanza yet. This does NOT mean that going an an SSRI turns you into a killer. Correlation does not equal causation. However, this is something that should be looked into. It won’t be, because the pharmaceutical lobby and industry are HUGE. Compared to it, the NRA is not even a grain of sand. Guns and other inanimate objects don’t have the ability to cause people to flip out and go on a killing spree. Simply not possible. Something that dramatically changes a young persons brain chemistry, on the other hand…well, it’s not likely, but it is at least within the realm of POSSIBILITY.

    I would not be the least bit surprised that Adam Lanza was on an SSRI as well. Some of them flat out are *proven* to increase suicidal tendencies in young people. This does not necessarily mean they would do the same to an older person. *shrug*.

    I would not be a bit shocked to find we have drugged up suburban kids causing problems on one hand (legal drugs) and on the other hand you have the drug war (recreational drugs) being the root cause of much inner city crime. On one hand the pharm industry, on the other hand the cartels, both enabled by the government. Yay.

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    • The most likely reason many spree shooters are found to be on SSRIs? Because they are handed out like freaking candy when you go to a pshrink. They are a first line tool in treating a wide variety of disorders/illness/moderate discomforts/crazy because they tend to have far fewer side effects than the classes of anti-depressants that came before, although they are used for other issues as beyond depression, on- and off-label. I know from personal experience that the side effects can be annoying as all hell, but they generally don’t kill you if you eat the wrong food like MAO inhibitors could, problems with scuicidal adolescents notwithstanding.

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