NEW YORK’S “CCIA” NOT STRONG ENOUGH? HOCHUL NOW SOCKS IT TO NEW YORKERS FOR PURCHASING AMMO

HOCHUL’S PLAN IS OFF TO A ROCKY START

As many Americans know, especially those residing in New York, the Hochul Government’s assault on our Nation’s most sacred right—the right to armed self-defense against man, or beast, or the man-beast of Government (i.e., Tyranny)—continues unabated.

When the U.S. Supreme Court came down with the Bruen decision in late June 2022, Kathy Hochul and the Democrat Party-controlled Legislature in Albany wasted no time with a response.

The Governor and the State’s massive Anti-Second Amendment army situated in the Executive offices and in the Legislature had long expected a negative outcome, ever since the oral argument back in late 2021.

No doubt the Government had worked on a response to the decision for months. It needed but to place the finishing touches on that response once the majority opinion came down. This it did.

The Hochul Government’s response came in the form of a set of amendments to the State’s handgun law.

That law, a decidedly and decisively noxious, illegal, bloated licensing regime that had its origin well over a century before, with the enactment of the Sullivan Act of 1911, had grown progressively more onerous and destructive of the most important God-Given right a free people can wield: the right to bear arms against intolerable, suffocating, Government Tyranny.

A century after the enactment of the Sullivan Act, Hochul’s Predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, thrust the New York Safe Act on unsuspecting New Yorkers.

Cuomo did this in secret, deliberately bypassing the normal three-day waiting period, having “invoked a message of necessity.”

But what do New Yorkers really know about that message of necessity?

They know Cuomo and Anti-Second Amendment Democrats needed to hoodwink Senate Republicans.  

At the time, Republicans controlled the State Senate. Had the bill undergone a careful reading by the full Senate and, had the Senate undertaken calm, sincere, reasoned debate, it’s unlikely the NY Safe Act would have seen passage.

But, by the time Kathy Hochul became Governor of New York, Democrats controlled the entire Legislature.

Flash forward to early July 2022.

Just days after the Bruen decision, the Legislature in Albany passed a set of amendments to the State’s handgun law. On that same day, July 1, Hochul signed the bill into law.

Referred to as the Concealed Handgun Improvement Act, or “CCIA,” this seemingly innocuous descriptor for the Act did little to disguise the Government’s sinister intent.

One need not be a lawyer to see the CCIA for what it is: an act of unabashed hatred toward the exercise of the citizen’s absolute and eternal right, codified in the Nation’s Second Amendment, and an act of blatant, contemptuous defiance directed to the U.S. Supreme Court, our Nation’s Third Branch of Government.

Despite numerous challenges to the CCIA, almost a half dozen of which sit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, awaiting a decision, Governor Hochul and her compatriots in Albany felt the need to add more salt to an open wound. And it came in the form of further amendments to the State’s Handgun Law.

The salient amendment is found in the Consolidated laws of New York, NY CLS Penal § 400.03:

It involves, one, a change in the mechanism gun dealers and sellers of ammunition must now adhere to when doing background checks for a person purchasing ammunition in New York, and, two, a monetary outlay pertaining to the new background check necessitated by that purchase.

The specific amendment is shown below, with “strike-throughs” for the deleted original wording, and emphasis for the new wording.

“If the superintendent of state police certifies that background checks of ammunition purchasers may be conducted through the national instant criminal background check system or through, a dealer or seller shall contact the division of state police once the division has been designated point of contact, use of that system by a dealer or seller to conduct such check which shall be sufficient to satisfy subdivisions four and five of this section and such checks shall be conducted through such system, provided that a record of such transaction shall be forwarded to the state police in a form determined by the superintendent.

Hochul’s stated reason for the amendment is always the depressingly familiar need to promote “public safety” and prevent “gun violence”—pretexts, masks, and codewords for an agenda aimed at disarming the citizenry.

This explains why Hochul’s gun laws only target the average, responsible, rational, law-abiding citizen, never the psychopathic criminal and rabid lunatics in New York who commit violent crimes, whether by firearm or other means.

Hochul doesn’t dare express the truth to New Yorkers.

The real but unstated purpose for enactment of such elaborate, convoluted gun laws is to frustrate and discourage the citizens residing in New York who wish to exercise their fundamental, eternal right to armed self-defense, and to create difficulties for licensed New York gun dealers who provide a necessary service, supportive of the citizen’s right to armed self-defense.

However, the passage of a bill reflecting a politician’s wishes does not always translate easily into effective real-world operations.

Passage of the novel ammunition background check amendment occurred on July 15, 2023, and became effective on September 13, 2023, just one month later. But it ran into problems.   

Some New York Gun dealers argue the system still has bugs given the delays encountered in processing ammunition purchases. See article and video in the New York CBS affiliate, WCAX3.

At best, the new NICS system operated erratically. See, e.g., articles posted by WIVB4 News, Outdoor News, and Bearing Arms.

Note: Gun transfers still require use of the FBI NICS system which operates smoothly. Why, then, didn’t New York use the FBI NICS?

One may infer Hochul would have liked to do so but didn’t because she couldn’t. There is no Federal statutory mechanism for the use of FBI NICS for the purchase of ammunition alone. See the FBI.gov website (re: NICS).

And, even if, legally, the FBI could voluntarily take this task on, it would be an added chore the Bureau would have no interest in undertaking.

So that task falls on the Superintendent of the New York State Police. See NY CLS Exec § 228. National Instant Criminal Background Checks. Section 1(a) sets forth,

“The division is hereby authorized and directed to serve as a state point of contact for implementation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 922 (t), all federal regulations and applicable guidelines adopted pursuant thereto, and the national instant criminal background check system for the purchase of firearms and ammunition.”

But it is unlikely the New York State Police Superintendent is ecstatic about setting up a separate NICS specifically directed to handling background checks for purchases of ammunition in the State because, if that operation fails, it is on his head.

But, the Superintendent has no choice in the matter. He serves at the pleasure of the Governor who appoints him. And that person, at the moment, is Kathy Hochul. See NY CLS Exec § 210:

“The division of state police in the executive department shall be known as the ‘New York State Police.’ The head of the New York state police shall be the superintendent of state police who shall be appointed by the governor by and with the advice and consent of the senate, and hold office during his or her pleasure.”

Hochul’s last appointment to the position of Superintendent of the New York State Police was Steven A. Nigrelli.

Hochul appointed Nigrelli as acting Superintendent, on October 19, 2022.

Eleven months later, Nigrelli “abruptly announced his retirement as the acting superintendent of the New York State Police . . . after learning that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration was no longer considering making him the permanent superintendent.” The Buffalo News adds that “Hochul’s decision comes after the state Office of Employee Relations investigated and substantiated several harassment and mistreatment allegations against Nigrelli.”

More to the point, as reported by Spectrum local news, it was “Gov. Kathy Hochul [herself, who] rescinded [Nigrelli’s] candidacy to permanently serve in the role [of Superintendent] officials said.”   

So, then, for Nigrelli it was either voluntarily retire or be fired. See also the New York Post article.

At the moment, then, the New York State Police doesn’t have an acting Superintendent. This comes at a bad time for Hochul.

Likely, Nigrelli timed his departure to demonstrate his displeasure with the Governor.

Perhaps he hopes the ammunition background check program becomes an unmitigated disaster and personal embarrassment for the Governor. Or, perhaps, Nigrelli doesn’t care one way or the other whether the ammunition criminal background check program runs into constant irremediable snags or not.

And what is the story about those new fees? Bearing Arms, for one, reports this:

“The new law . . . makes it more expensive to purchase a gun and ammunition in the state (new background check fees on gun purchases add an additional $9 to each sale, while each background check for ammunition comes with a $2.50 surcharge). . . .”

But are assessment of these fees lawful? Apparently, they are. See NY CLS Exec § 228 National Instant Criminal Background Checks. Section 5(a) says,

“Each licensed dealer that submits a request for a national instant criminal background check pursuant to this section shall pay a fee imposed by the bureau for performing such background check. Such fee shall be allocated to the background check fund established pursuant to section ninety-nine-pp of the state finance law. The amount of the fee shall not exceed the total amount of direct and indirect costs incurred by the bureau in performing such background check.”

The dealer thereupon passes the fees onto the purchaser.

But we wondered whether the $2.50 fee is per individual box of ammunition or per individual sale, regardless of how many boxes a customer purchases. News accounts don’t say. We did some digging.

Contacting the New York State Police, we learned the price charged is per sale: one background check equals one $2.50 fee, regardless of how many boxes or cartons of ammunition one purchases. And that is consistent with the language of the Statute, NY CLS Exec § 228, supra.

Also, keep in mind that these most present amendments to the Handgun Law are to be construed as a component of the CCIA, not as something distinct from it.

The reader should understand that these constant amendments to New York’s handgun laws are not accidental.

New York’s approach to undermining the right codified in the Second Amendment is not sporadic or mere kneejerk reactions to specific events even if that appears to be the case.

The present amendments are a component of the CCIA.

Both the CCIA of 2022 and the NY Safe Act of 2013 before it, and all the other amendments to New York’s Gun licensing regime, are the product of a meticulous, devious, deliberative process, that one must trace back to the Sullivan Act of 1911.

The actions of the New York Government and that of several other States, along with that of the Biden Administration, all illustrate a carefully planned, concerted, and coordinated effort to whittle away at the citizen’s right to armed self-defense.

And this effort has moved ahead exceptionally fast in the last fifteen years, in spite of or, perhaps, because of the Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. And more such rulings are expected in the weeks and months to come.

These rulings are, however, at loggerheads with the worldwide effort of powerful Globalist interests to reduce the populations of the U.S., the EU, and the British Commonwealth nations to impoverishment, subservience, and abject misery. They are succeeding.

The United States is the only Nation that recognizes the natural law right to armed self-defense. That fact drives the Globalists and their stooges in the Federal Government and in such States as New York, New Mexico, California, and several others, to a frenzy of rage and frenetic action to constrain and even punish Americans’ Patriot yearnings.

Tyranny cannot exist where a citizenry is armed. That fact is axiomatic.

If Americans remain true to their core beliefs, that hearken back to the American Revolution, we can and will defeat all Tyrants.