I’m wondering if The Freedom Group is regretting expanding and consolidating their manufacturing there yet. It was a foolish move to expand operations in a state where the legislature is outwardly hostile to gun rights and the gun business. The bill covers all guns manufactured or delivered in the State of New York. I have said a purpose of our opponents is to find ways to get gun owners like you and me thrown in prison. This bill is a treasure trove:
Section 4 of the bill amends subdivision 6 of section 265.10 of the penal law to clarify that the existing class D felony offense of defacing a firearm includes the defacement of a microstamping component or mechanism of a semiautomatic pistol.
And how, as a gun owner, am I supposed to tell whether the stamping face has worn? Research has demonstrated that microstamp faces naturally wear. Can the authorities make a distinction between defacement and normal wear? Is the burden on me, the gun owner, to show it’s wear? I can’t exactly see it. How am I supposed to tell if when I took my pistol into the gunsmith, he didn’t mismatch the part. If I order a new firing pin, how am I supposed to ascertain whether the marking is correct and true? Remember, if it’s wrong, I could be facing a felony rap.
This section also creates a new class A misdemeanor offense when a dealer in firearms sells, offers for sale, exchanges, gives, transfers or delivers a semiautomatic pistol knowing that the microstamping component or mechanism of such pistol has been defaced.
And how is the dealer supposed to know? Are dealers required to equip up like a ballistics lab so they can fire a casing, and examine it under a microscope? What if a stamp is worn? How worn is too worn? What counts as defacement? The dealer is facing a high level misdemeanor if he gets it wrong. If I were an attorney advising a New York gun shop, I’d tell him your safe bet is to cease operations, and get out of the business, or only deal in firearms manufactured before January 1st, 2014, which are grandfathered under this bill.
This bill will definitely help the gun control lobby achieve their goals of putting more gun owners in prison. It will also cost upstate jobs as Reminginton is forced to re-locate.
It still has to pass the senate, which it won’t.We do this every year or so up here, and every year the vote in the democratic controlled assembly gets closer and closer to failing, while the vote killing it in the senate gets no closer to passage.
I say let ’em pass it. When the industry moves out of state, they’ll lose the jobs and the income. Alot of voters will be pissed off in the next election cycle and industry leaders will chide Bloomberg for it. If NY wants to punish itself over gun rights, then let them. Plus, using the arguments presented here, this law has a suit written all over it. Just one single arrest because of this law is all it will take to make the argument to repeal it. Assuming, of course, we can make said arrest a big enough issue in the public eye.
Does this bill contain the “unencumbered by patents” language like California’s does?
I remember one commenter on a story about this (I think you linked to it in a previous thread) said “Remington will leave over this bill? I say Good Riddance!” Besides the fact that Upstate New York will lose 1,000 jobs, I don’t understand the short-sightedness of the commenter: even people who want to ban guns will concede that the police and the military need them! Where will they get their guns? From the gun fairy?
The cluelessness of anti-gun folk can sometimes blow my mind. It’s clear, though, that when they hear something like this, they have knee-jerk reactions that aren’t thought through at all…and, as Japete seems to like to demonstrate, many never think through their positions.
Of course, a law such as this only applies to the people, not the military or the psuedo-military that the police forces are (have?) becoming.
Four legs good, two legs baaaaaaad.
There are no exemptions in the bill.
Two things:
First, under NY law “firearms” means handguns only.
Second, microstamping has nothing to do with the firing pin. That is not what the bill says. Read the exact text. The stuff in CAPS is the proposed changes.
Microstamping technology utilizes lasers to make
precise, microscopic engravings on the internal mechanisms of a gun,
such as the breech face and firing pin
From the bill.
Granted, it also specifies “at least two locations”, so it can’t be just the firing pin. In practice, as others have said, I’d bet on pin and extractor, simply because that’s the only practical and sensible way to do that; nobody wants to try and make the bolt face do that.
Both parts are, of course, easily swapped – and in some cases, on some pistols, wear out pretty fast or tend to break.
(I note the ironic exception that it’s okay to replace a firing pin when necessary “for safe function” or “legitimate sporting purpose”. Which I reckon will happen with a whole lot of them at a surprisingly high rate, and it’ll be impossible in most cases for the State to prove that neither was true.
Oddly, however, no exception for extractors…
Another nice [no sarcasm] addition is the exemption of “defaced microstamping” from the “presumptively guilty by possession” list for defaced markings.)
Sebastian: The text makes it a misdemeanor (265.10(6)(B)) for a dealer to sell a “defaced” gun knowingly… which will be hard to prove if he ain’t on tape saying so to the customer.
The other misdemeanors there require only that pistols made after the cutoff be “microstamp-ready”, which means they were manufactured with the capability; I see no language there that requires that they not have been defaced by another, so long as the dealer is unaware of it.
It’s a stupid, stupid law – but not quite as bad as you suggest in that specific.
Microstamping technology utilizes lasers to make precise, microscopic engravings on the internal mechanisms of a gun, such as the breech face and firing pin
That is not in the bill. You are reading the justification text, not the bill text. The bill text simply says pistols must make marks in two locations on spent cases. It does not specify how/where those marks are to be made. It cannot be on the extractor because that is used to clear a loaded chamber without firing. If we assume the primer is location #1, where is location #2? It has to be somewhere else on the case and done when the primer imprint is made. This is where the real devious nature of the bill becomes apparent.
The only way to comply with this would be a total redesign of all pistols to somehow make two marks on two different areas of the case, with the case being made of a much harder metal than the thin, soft primer metal. Assuming this redesign is even possible, which seems unlikely as it would impede the ability of the action to cycle properly. This is how the bill amounts to a the total prohibition of all new pistols. It is written in such a way that it cannot be complied with.
Now situations like this are where the Commerce clause was intended to be applied! US Congress should step in and legislate to “make regular” the standards of firearms manufacturing throughout the states. NY’s actions amount to a restraint of interstate commerce, I say!
While I feel for the good people of Ilion, I don’t have any problem with the transfer of Remington to North Carolina. After all, it is the HQ state of the Freedom Group.
PA would welcome those jobs.
Looks like mere possession of a gun where the micro stamo device is defaced does not make you presumptively guilty :
” 21 S 6. Subdivision 5 of section 265.15 of the penal law, as amended by 22 chapter 695 of the laws of 1987, is amended to read as follows: 23 5. The possession by any person of a defaced machine-gun, firearm, 24 rifle or shotgun is presumptive evidence that such person defaced the 25 same, PROVIDED, HOWEVER, THAT THIS SUBDIVISION SHALL NOT APPLY TO 26 POSSESSION OF A SEMI-AUTOMATIC PISTOL WHERE THE DEFACEMENT ALLEGED 27 CONSISTS OF DEFACING A MICROSTAMPING COMPONENT OR MECHANISM OF SUCH 28 PISTOL.”
In other words, just go ahead and swap out firing pins, extractors, and buff out your breechface and you can go ahead and murder with impunity! There will be rivers of blood!
:)
At least it puts the monkey on the state’s back to prove you are the one who defaced the stamping mechanism. Not that this makes the law any more palatable or acceptable.
Yeah, but they’ll just change the law later when it becomes apparent that it is nearly impossible to prove.
I don’t live in NY. The last two new pistols I bought were made in Illinois and Massachusetts.
I’m not seeing how this affects me if I just refuse to buy Freedom Group product and stay inside the USA.
Watch for certain brands of “hard primers” to enjoy a sales surge in the NY market.
Better still, a rebounding, spring-steel primer cup….the firing pin impact would still crush the compound against the anvil, but being spring-hard, the firing pin would give but the merest scuff to the metal, leaving no discernable imprint.
Wouldn’t have to touch the gun from an alteration or legal standpoint. Just feed it imprint-resistant ammo.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Imagine the case where a little old lady from Buffalo is arrested for a drive-by shooting in the Bronx, because brass from her trip to the range a month earlier was found at the crime scene. Sounds like this bill would create a market for distractionary evidence fabrication for crime scenes.