New York 'gun day' showcases false crime-fighting promises

April 30, 9:08 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

Previous Next

7 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Gun Rights Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Malcolm A. Smith 

I thought New York, like the rest of the country, was supposed to be struggling in today's economy:

States and cities are also being hit hard by unemployment’s effect on tax revenue. The 23,300 Wall Street jobs that disappeared in the year through February helped blow a $16 billion hole in New York state’s budget. State officials are trying to close the gap by raising taxes, which will likely restrain spending and slow recovery.

So with people worried about things like...uh...basic survival, and their "leaders" looking for new ways to wring even more out of them, how is it the state has $500,000 laying around for the SNUG program ("that's 'guns' spelled backwards")? And how are they going to blo...uh...allocate it?

The money would be used to provide intervention in hospitals, to hire people to talk to gang members who are shot, right in the emergency room to keep them from retaliating.

You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding.

But wait, there's more:

The money would also fund school programs to dissuade kids from joining gangs.

Is this where we break into the chorus from "Gee, Officer Krupke"? It's like if we close our eyes and wish, the symptoms might go away. And these are ostensibly adults proposing this.  I wonder if they'll have a poster contest?

But it gets better:

Outside the building, some 200 school kids lay on the pavement in front, to remember the victims of gun violence.

"We're doing this to honor the victims from Virginia Tech, Binghamton and Columbine," one of the demonstrating students told NEWS10.

What, no candlelight vigil accompanied by acoustic guitars to stir our gentle souls? Or at least a ramp, a motorcycle and a guy dressed like Evel Knievel who will see if he can jump all 200?

Y'know, this just isn't enough. Why, there oughtta be a law. That's why Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D, naturally), "announced a program to curb illegal guns." He did not reveal how he intended to make sure violent career criminals cooperated, however.

But don't worry, because Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Tice has just the "common sense" ticket: Microstamping.

With microstamping, the gun's firing pin would imprint a unique ID number on each shell casing, which could link that weapon to a crime.

Yeah, except there are already something like 200 million guns already in this country that will not be affected, it won't be applied to guns in any of the other states, it won't happen with rifles, shotguns or revolvers, firing pins can be filed down or replaced, stolen guns won't tell you who committed the crime, ejected brass can be picked up by the perp, and brass picked up from firing ranges can be "seeded" at the scene to throw investigators off track and implicate the innocent.

But other than that, it's basic common sense.

Still, Operation SM...uh...SNUG has its unapologetic champions:

“Today marks a turning point in community safety,” said Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith. “Gun violence affects us all- white or black, rich or poor, illegal guns terrorize neighborhoods and tear apart families. For too long, the deadly specter of illegal guns has gone unchecked. In cities across the state, our children are dying at the hands of gun violence, but through our commitment to SNUG, we can put a stop to that deadly trend now and return our streets to their rightful owners, the people of New York.

I can just hear the Stentorian intonations from this bloviating windbag. Did you ever hear such a load in your life? He just stood there and flat-out...well, you know what he just flat-out did. I guess during a $16B shortfall, you need to come up with some justification for liberating $4M (you didn't think they'd stop at $500K, did you?) from the productive sector to throw away on nonsense that gives him the illusion of being a leader.

"Commitment to SNUG" will "put a stop to that deadly trend"? Really? How? I mean aside from coming up with an insipid, meaningless acronym?

This initiative developed is modeled after the highly successful Cease Fire Gun Violence Prevention Model currently used in Chicago.

Chicago? That wouldn't be "gun-free" murder capital Chicago, would it?

I guess New Yorkers are about to find out what Malcolm Smith and Kathleen Tice mean by "highly successful."

And how.