casingpoint wrote:people are issued permits in NY
Remember when people who couldn't, wouldn't or otherwise didn't pay a poll tax could not vote? Found unconstitutional in federal court. Same principle applies to concealed carry states. You don't pay, you can't play. The economics of obtaining a permit puts them out of reach for many people who need guns the most to defend themselves. This amounts to a defacto ban of handguns.
Not entirely true. Actually in NY City, as well as in the state, the system is much worse than that. If you have political pull, you will get a permit or if you can show a "need" you are quite likely to get a permit (jewelers, business people carrying large amounts of cash). If you cannot show cause or yank the right chain, if you just want to casually spend some time plinking with a .22 at the dump, or if you think you might be interested in learning to target shoot, good luck, in some counties you can get a permit just by applying and passing the background check, in others your application will sit on a desk for 6 months, and then be denied for cause, and the cause will be: 1, you have young children in the household at times, or; 2, you are too young, or; 3, you are too old, or; 4, you have not shown convincing need. Among others we saw when we were busy suing the judges and state for blocking permits.
Our suits did accomplish something, the law was changed to include that the permit application must be accepted, they have 6 months to approve or deny, and a reason has to be given to deny, where it had been indefinite and a judge or licensing officer could leave the application unprocessed forever and didn't have to give a reason for denial. We sued over the bench veto, and won, and our test case's permit was then not accepted by the clerk, just tossed in the trash, so we sued and won, so then our test case's permit was denied for no reason, so we sued and won, and then the permit was denied for a couple of the above reasons, and we ran out of funds.
Back to your point about poll taxes, actually the fee system in NY, which used to be locally controlled, something else that was tested in court, is very reasonable compared to Texas, and since there are more pistol permits in existence in NY than Texas (Texas had 288,000+ in 2007, NY shows 1,200,000, a ratio of a little over 4 to 1) it would appear that NY is by far less unconstitutional than TX.
NY's fees are:14.
Fees. In the city of New York and the county of Nassau, the annual license fee shall be twenty-five dollars for gunsmiths and fifty dollars for dealers in firearms. In such city, the city council and in the county of Nassau the Board of Supervisors shall fix the fee to be charged for a license to carry or possess a pistol or revolver and provide for the disposition of such fees. Elsewhere in the state, the licensing officer shall collect and pay into the county treasury the following fees: for each license to carry or possess a pistol or revolver, not less than three dollars nor more than ten dollars as may be determined by the legislative body of the county; for each amendment thereto, three dollars, and five dollars in the county of Suffolk; and for each license issued to a gunsmith or dealer in firearms, ten dollars. The fee for a duplicate license shall be five dollars. The fee for processing a license transfer between counties shall be five dollars. The fee for processing a license or renewal thereof for a qualified retired police officer as defined under subdivision thirty-four of section 1.20 of the criminal procedure law, or a qualified retired sheriff, undersheriff, or deputy sheriff of the city of New York as defined under subdivision two of section 2.10 of the criminal procedure, or a qualified retired bridge and tunnel officer, sergeant or lieutenant of the triborough bridge and tunnel authority as defined under subdivision twenty of section 2.10 of the criminal procedure law, or a qualified retired uniformed court officer in the unified court system, or a qualified retired court clerk in the unified court system in the first and second judicial departments, as defined in paragraphs a and b of subdivision twenty-one of section 2.10 of the criminal procedure law or a retired correction officer as defined in subdivision twenty-five of section 2.10 of the criminal procedure law shall be waived in all counties throughout the state.
Once again, back to your original point, Burress, being a sports star, celebrity, and having the pull that accrues from those as well as plenty of money, could easily have applied for a permit, making him a very poor test case. Of course the fact that he is not a resident of NY State might enter into the question, since NY does not have a structure that allows out of state pistol permit holders, not to say they wouldn't they just don't have the administrative structure to handle such applications. Burress also hasn't bothered to get licensed in New Jersey, his home of record, and so he violated, knowingly (remember he deigned to get a FL permit, which implies awareness of the law) not just NY law, but NJ law as well as federal law.
Whether or not NY's law is unconstitutional, or any state's law for that matter, is not and has not been my point, only that Burress is a very poor test case.
I hope they send Burress farther upstate than Sing Sing, Ossining is just a short drive, Dannemora or Attica would be better IMO.
