Everything old is new again when government
officials regulate things they don't understand.
Anti-gun politicians in the Big Apple overlooked these
two beauties.
I've written before about how, when I was a New York City resident, I tired of the endless, intrusive and insulting process of applying for a pistol permit. Disgusted, I purchased a banned "assault weapon" on the black market. What I haven't written is that I also bought two pistols without a permit or registration -- perfectly legally. It was a purchase that would probably have never taken place without the perverse incentives inevitably created by restrictive laws.
For years, I stayed away from this topic because there was a nice, under-the-radar loophole in the law and I felt no need to rock the boat. It's still there, but it's not under the radar any more. The law allows for the red-tape-free purchase and possession of "antique firearms" and replicas thereof. That means guns in obsolete calibers for which ammunition is no longer manufactured. It also means muzzleloading hunting rifles. Most importantly, it includes cap-and-ball revolvers of the sort used around the middle of the 19th century. As the New York State Police Website puts it:
The Penal Law definition of antique firearm is generally applied to muzzle loading black powder firearms, but also applies to pistols or revolvers "that use fixed cartridges which are no longer available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade".
Muzzle loading pistols or revolvers do not have to be registered on a pistol permit if the owner never intends to fire them.
If they are possessed in a loaded condition or are simply possessed simultaneously with the components necessary to make them fire, they must first be registered on a valid pistol permit.
Note: Should a manufacturer begin to produce ammunition for a pistol or revolver for which ammunition had not been available previously, that weapon no longer meets the criteria of an antique weapon and is required to be registered. A pistol or revolver, regardless of age, when possessed with the ammunition necessary to make it discharge, is required to be registered.
This rare (in New York) oasis of relative freedom in a sea of overregulation survives in the Empire State largely because nobody ever had much reason to take notice. Criminals don't need to mess with loose gunpowder, percussion caps, lead bullets and grease. They just go to the black market and buy whatever modern weapons suit their fancy. So, frankly, does most everybody else. The usual estimate of illegal firearms in New York City is two million, as jaded urbanites apply the same attitude to gun control that has seen them through Prohibition, vice laws, the war on drugs and the rest of the regulatory state. But for people squeamish about illicit transactions and just looking for some insurance to keep in the nightstand, a cap-and-ball revolver might well do the job.
And there are some very nice working reproductions of Civil War-era guns available at very reasonable prices.
The opportunity for self defense provided by the muzzleloading exception to New York's byzantine gun laws has long been a matter of quiet understanding. The gun shop in which I purchased my (modern) pistol and started the legal paperwork for a permit so I could take the thing home had a small display case facing the main case of modern weapons. The smaller case contained modern reproductions of Colt, Remington and similar revolvers of the sort that won the West before anybody thought of wrapping the stuff that goes "bang" in a copper or brass tube to make it easier to handle. These revolvers take longer to load than their descendants, but once loaded, they function pretty much like today's guns.
While would-be gun buyers (inevitably) fumed over the hassle and expense of getting a modern weapon within the rules set by New York City (where the powerful are given special consideration for permits -- or bodyguards), these blast-from-the-past alternatives sat there, offering another option. Nobody said anything, but ... There can't be that many Civil War buffs in Manhattan.
I didn't buy my cap-and-ball guns at the store, because the frustration set in while I was at home. Besides, I wasn't going to pay New York prices if I could help it. So I mail-ordered what I wanted with no fuss.
Of course, New York's legal exception applied only so long as the guns were kept as paperweights. Bring ammo into the picture and the "loophole" goes away. But once you have the iron at home, what do the authorities know? And with my strictly under-the-table "assault weapon" purchase, I wasn't pretending to be law-abiding. In fact, I was on a sock-it-to-the-state tear.
So I bought percussion caps and bullets too. Gunpowder was another matter. It wasn't hard to find, but it was a tad more regulated than lead balls and I didn't want to raise any red flags. I actually improvised my own at first (it worked fine) before buying the real stuff outside the city.
And there I was, well-heeled with little fuss.
Oddly enough, I chuckled over the matter with a few Europeans about a year after the fact, and a Hungarian told me that the law was almost identical back in his home country. He said he knew plenty of people who didn't want to bother with the authorities or the black market, but who were packing like it was 1859. (A quick check reveals that Hungarian law still parallels New York antique-gun regulations.)
Unfortunately, last year, one of the twisted control freaks who infest elected offices in and around New York City got his knickers in a bunch over the antique-gun exception. In one of those statistical rolls of the dice, a New York State trooper was wounded with a black-powder rifle around the same time some guy was found with a muzzleloader on a college campus. That's two incidents in a state of 20 million people. In terms of things worth worrying about, that should have ranked up there with sewer gators coming up through your toilet and biting you on the ass. But this is New York. Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris decided that antique guns are a threat to the public safety.
Ironically, Gianaris touts his Greek heritage in the first line of his official biography. The Greek government admits that the country's not-so-submissive population of fewer than 11 million people own 1.5 million illegal guns. You gotta wonder how Gianaris would fare in the old country.
So far, Gianaris's attempt to disarm the 19th century (and its admirers) hasn't gone anywhere. That's probably because of the loud screams raised by New York's many museums and historical reenactors, who fear felony charges for any mistakes they may make while licensing and registering their extensive collections of wall-hangers.
Welcome to our world.
But Gianaris and some breathless press coverage about "deadly" black-powder guns have let the cat out of the bag. New Yorkers may or may not continue to be able to arm themselves with the finest defense technology available to Ulysses S. Grant, but they're no longer operating under the radar.
Besides, New Yorkers have better options. Until the law changes for the (less restrictive) better, one way or another, that sizeable minority of New York City residents who want to exercise the right to self defense can take advantage of one of the better black markets in the country. Really, anything is offered for sale -- much of it at pretty good prices. Most people looking for a gun in that city -- and unwilling to subject themselves to the intrusion, expense and arbitrary permit withdrawals of the legal process -- do exactly that.
In all things, liberty finds a way around the law.
But it's still interesting to reflect on the weird holes in the law left by yet another effort to impose draconian restrictions on disfavored activities and objects by government officials who know what they don't like -- even if they don't understand it in the least. Overregulation always produces defiance and illicit markets. But sometimes it also produces oddities, like new life for antique technology.
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Comments
"For years, I stayed away from this topic because there was a nice, under-the-radar loophole in the law and I felt no need to rock the boat. It's still there, but it's not under the radar any more."
That was a wise decision JD, no point helping the Commisars.
The Bolsheviks who are now in power, as they are in NYC, will never cease until they have disarmed the good Americans.
THEN they can do what they did in the days after they killed the Czar.
Anyone think that CAN'T happen?
gunbanobama.com
nraila.org/obama/
gunowners.org/
BTW JD I wanted to add that after all these years you still look great.
I first read your writings on About.com years ago and then lost touch with your writings. Glad I found you again!
DEMOCIDE, that's why there is a 2nd Amendment!
Why do you accept slavery? It is an obvious case of self defense to take up arms against those that would enslave or rob or invade your home or business.
"An unarmed People is an enslaved People".
"A disarmed People are a conquered People".
I will not be conquered or enslaved and will resist with force of arms any attempts to do so.
Get off your knees.
This is presented under the protections of The United States Constitution and the 1st and 2nd Amendments as ratified Jan. 15, 1791.
Then there's the simple fact that any reasonably handy person, using simple hand-tools found in most (REAL) men's garages and materials available at most any hardware store - can build a working full-auto submachine gun with a little ingenuity or any of several sets of plans easily found on the 'net.
These laws are not about public safety, they're about control. They're about POWER. They serve only to disarm the law-abiding and do nothing to stop criminals, thus making it easier on criminals of all stripes - including those passing such laws.
God help us.
DD
I suppose it might be instructive to point out that the "dreaded" AK-47 was designed to be able to be manufactured in an ordinary machine shop, with no special equipment that could not also be made there.
Hehe - It is fitting in a way that the place to buy real military hardware is in the former Eastern Europe, especially from Kosovo, Serbia or Slovakia.
Of course this is illegal as hell but business is booming.
Among the New York city politicians, Gun Control is like a religious cult. Sometimes I think that the only reason they didn't cremated 2nd amendment all togeather like in Chacago or Washington DC, so they could cut off each year a piece from 2nd amendments dead body and bring it to the altar of the cult known as Gun Control in a form of another needless and ineffective gun law.
So is a gattling gun legal? You know a reproduction, not the one mounted under the nose cone of an A-10. It would look way cool hanging off my balcony. No bullets ;)
"Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris decided that antique guns are a threat to the public safety."
I disagree. POLITICIANS are a threat to the public safety.
An interesting note:
The is an Italian copy of the Starr double action revolver from the War Between the States in .44 caliber. Black powder muzzle loader of course. There are also conversion cylinders available to convert muzzle loading revolvers to fire modern center-fire metallic cartridges available for sale without any legal restrictions. You can legally buy a .44 caliber Colt muzzle loader and then legally buy a conversion cylinder and you end up with a .45 Long Colt center-fire .45 caliber single action revolver.
Adolf Hitler once stated that his plan for total gun control was solely to eliminate criminals in his new, glorious Germany. However, who could have imagined that the "criminals" that he intended to destroy were millions of innocent men, women, and children.
NEVER, EVER accept the sirens' songs for gun control. NOTHING good can come out of it. Every country in the world who mass murdered it's own citizens first started off by erecting gun control laws.
While I wholly agree that antique weapons are just as effective, I still believe that the gun legislation or anti-gun legislation is a stranglehold on the legitimate gun owner! There should be NO control such as this state and procedureally constipated governmental entities foisted on us. Further, the Sullivan Law should have been dispensed with years ago. It is my belief that two things ought to take place: First; In the event of an insurrection which there might be if the time is ripe, the legitimate gun owner will be in definite danger as they were in New Orleans during Katrina, and might have to resort to whatever means is necessary for self survival. and Secondly; The gun owner that just has something that has been "hanging around the house for whatever" will have to start thinking of using it for self-survival. We must remember that the armories were built essentially for the protection of political prostitutes and their families that have to be protected from the decent citizen incensed by their oppressive enacted laws.
New York sucks. Let's hope we can keep Minnesota from going down that road. Give us our guns, our trans fats and our tobacco and there won't be any trouble.
Mr. Gianaris' efforts are largely symbolic. According to New York City's powers that be, there is no legitimate use for any weapon in the hands of someone not employed by the government, not just a front-stuffer like the '58 Remington shown above. Punishing the right to carry (and *use*) arms is the most effective way to disarm Citizens. It worked well against the freedmen, following the American Civil War.
I suppose I shouldn't complain? The disarmers have violated every possible aspect of the right of self-defense; there's nothing more they need to do. We should feel lucky that they are not yet implementing plans for the disarmed, but are heaping more process crimes on the populace--and needlessly creating resentment.
Thanks to pols like McCarthy and Bloomberg and Schumer et al a dear friend, a cute lil gal, was stomped and beaten by 4 BIG GUYS in Queens during a mugging at 7pm. She saw the 2 behind her and the 2 coming across the street when they were about 70 feet away,due to BLOOMBERG and the rest she COULD NOT have a pistol on her and so these animals did to her what I wouldn't wish on anyone. Right there on the sidewalk. Her scream which carried for 1.5 city blocks is the only thing that saved her life. She is not the same to this day.
That is what GUN CONTROL does.
The first shots at Concord where the result of the British trying to seize arms. The American Revolution for freedom started over gun rights.
The 2nd amendment not there so we can protect ourselves from each other, it is there so we can protect ourselves from a possible future tyrannical government. It is one of the checks an balances added to the Constitution. Like the right to free speech and assembly mentioned, it is an individual right, not a state right.
There is no reason to deny guns to anyone who has never committed a violent crime. Local laws can not contradict constitutional rights.
Great article, J.C. From what I'm seeing, it's already over. The country is run by criminals intent on destroying the Second Amendment, and they continue TO GET AWAY WITH IT. The law books are already filled with unconstitutional infringements on the right to keep & bear arms, and there is NO hue and cry about it! As you mentioned, New York and other places ALREADY have extensive gun registration in place. The next step, confiscation, surely is near because so many Americans have apparently given up on the freedoms so many fought so hard and died for.
To the barracades for liberty and justice, remember it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. God Bless Ameica. Amore America o il sonno con i pesci. The Blue eyed Wop!
so it's legal to own an antique fire arm as long as there's no way of firing it. if you equip yourself to fire it, it now becomes an illegal firearm. so basically, you need to have an antique 9.5mm, with no way of firing it. if a bugler breaks into your house, you need to hope he has some extra bullets that fit your gun, so you can shoot him with one of his own bullets.
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