by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
Gun owners, sheriffs, county legislatures and other public officials have been calling for repeal of New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act since it was passed with unseemly haste on Jan. 15, 2013. Many lawsuits have been filed, and many are still in various courts.
And now some of the Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s chickens may be coming home to roost.
A significant ruling hit the seven round magazine limit of the SAFE Act just weeks after the State Police announced that the provision of the act requiring background checks and record keeping for ammunition purchases would be put on hold indefinitely. The ammo background checks system that was supported to be ready Jan. 1, 2014, had not been completed.
But the most significant court ruling so far came on Dec. 31 when a federal judge ruled that New York State’s expanded ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was constitutional, but struck down the provision forbidding gun owners from loading their firearms with more than seven rounds.
The judge, William M. Skretny of Federal District Court for the Western District of New York called the seven round limit “an arbitrary restriction” that violated the Second Amendment.
Using “intermediate scrutiny,” Judge Skretny said the greater restrictions on so-called assault weapons and magazines over 10 rounds were constitutional because they served to “further the state’s important interest in public safety.”
New York was the first state to pass new gun laws after the Newtown shooting. Judge Skretny’s ruling offered a victory to gun control advocates at the end of a year when relatively few new restrictions were passed in state capitals, and efforts to pass new legislation on the federal level were driven back in Congress.
The suit had been brought by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association and individual gun owners with support from the National Rifle Association, but it is just one of several that have been filed to challenge the SAFE Act, including one filed by the New York State Sheriff’s Association.
Judge Skretny’s decision is likely to be appealed, either by pro-gunners and anti-gunners, as well as the state attorney general’s office.
The seven-round limit on magazines, which Cuomo promoted when he pushed for the new laws in January, had already run into problems before the latest ruling.
In March, in response to complaints that seven-round magazines were not widely available for sale, Cuomo said he and legislative leaders would change the restriction so that 10-round magazines could continue to be purchased. But even with that change, gun owners would still be forbidden from loading more than seven rounds into those 10- round magazines.
But despite the ruling, gun owners should be wary about loading more than seven-rounds in a magazine.
According to WSYR-TV in Syracuse, Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick noted that Judge Skretny’s ruling is only binding in the Western District of New York.
He says the limitation on ammunition will continue to be enforced in the Northern District of New York – which includes the greater Syracuse area.
The Northern District federal court is where another suit is pending, and an amended complaint in that case has been filed by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) in its challenge that focuses on that section the “SAFE Act” relating to an arbitrary limit on the number of cartridges that may be loaded into a magazine, arguing that such a limit violates the Second Amendment.
SAF is joined by Long Island Firearms, LLC, the Shooters Committee on Political Education (SCOPE) of New York and seven individual plaintiffs, including a practicing physician.
Defendants are Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Joseph D’Amico, superintendent of the State Police.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, contends that the new law limits an individual citizen’s self-defense ability, especially if that person is physically disabled, by prohibiting more than seven rounds in a magazine, even if the magazine can hold eight, nine or ten cartridges.
“We have received numerous inquiries and concerns from members and supporters living in New York state about this new statute,” noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan M.
Gottlieb. “Aside from the obvious Second Amendment problems this cartridge limit presents, making it a crime to load more than seven cartridges into a ten round magazine, for example, is confusing to the point that it is almost entrapment.
“It’s not illegal to own an eight-, nine- or ten-round magazine,” he added, “but it is illegal under this new law to have more than seven rounds in such a magazine, except if a person is at a firing range. You can’t keep that many rounds in the magazine at home, or in a place of business, which simply defies logic unless the goal is to make ‘paper criminals’ out of people just to disqualify them from being able to own a firearm.”
“It is patently absurd to assert that making criminals out of legally licensed gun owners for loading the magazine or his/her registered firearm to its standard capacity, is somehow going to deter a criminal or make our communities safer in any way,”
Stephen Aldstadt, SCOPE president observed. “The NY SAFE Act must be overturned.”
“Our members are concerned that this statute plays no bearing on law abiding citizens who have gone through rigorous background checks already,” added Steven Blair, president of Long Island Firearms, LLC.
Gottlieb said the complaint was amended to allow additional plaintiffs to join the action because people have been harmed in different ways by this Draconian new law.
The lawsuit notes that magazines holding ten or more rounds of ammunition are in common usage by lawabiding citizens for all kinds of purposes, including self-defense. It contends that there is not sufficient government interest to justify restricting gun owners from loading more than seven rounds in their otherwise lawful eight-, nine- or ten-round magazines.
“This law sets an arbitrary limit on the number of rounds a person may load into an otherwise legal magazine,”
Gottlieb observed. “There is no rational explanation for this, other than to deliberately confuse the public.”
