There is an interesting controversy out of New York county where Acting District Attorney, Madeline Singas in Nassau County has prohibited prosecutors from owning a handgun. This is a curious way for an “acting” district attorney to start if she wants to be an actual district attorney since I believe that rule is unconstitutional. Prosecutors like other citizens have a second amendment right to own a gun. [Update: Singas has withdrawn her clearly unconstitutional condition on prosecutors]
We have previously seen New York prosecutors get into trouble with handguns, but that is no more reason to ban gun ownership than it is to deny other protected rights like free speech due to improper public comments.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office on New York’s Long Island bars even legal guns at home without a special exception from Singas. The application for the office now states:
“
[A]ssistant district attorneys are not permitted to apply for a handgun permit nor own or possess a handgun while employed by the Nassau County District Attorney. Any exception to this policy must be in writing and approved by the District Attorney.”
I wonder if an applicant can score extra points by pointing out that the office application states an unconstitutional condition for employment.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office insists that “Our practice of asking prosecutors to not possess handguns is to ensure the safety and comfort of staff, victims, and witnesses, and is consistent with other district attorney’s offices in the New York City metropolitan area.”
First of all, the application does not suggest that anyone is being “asked . . . not to possess handguns.” It says that they are not permitted. Second, it is hard to see how a ban on home guns would add comfort to “staff, victims, and witnesses.” Finally, whatever the desire of the office, it cannot make people feel more comfortable than denying a protected right to others in this context.
Gene Volokh deserves credit for raising this issue and has pointed out that N.Y. Labor Code § 201-d protects any “lawful, leisure-time activity, for which the employee receives no compensation and which is generally engaged in for recreational purpose” that is included in the subcategory of “hobbies” and conducted “off of the employer’s premises and without use of the equipment or other property.”
It is astonishing to me that Singas would create and retain what I view as a clearly unconstitutional condition for employment.
What do you think?
QUOTE ” The best course for common sense is to stay the line of common sense: all guns registered, licensed, and only in the possession of those who are legally competent; back ground checks on all gun transactions, mandatory education, increased penalties for gun infractions.”
Why not use these “guidelines” for ALL our constitutional rights!?!?
Or maybe we could just wave a magic wand and turn reality into a fairyland.
New York County is otherwise known as Manhattan. Nassau is A county in NY state.
Maybe the DA knows something about those in her office that we don’t.
Maybe she should resign, just like Kim Davis should.
Actually her whole staff should come to work strapped and see what she does.
It is clearly unconstitutional and would not hold up in court.
totally ridiculous. Concealed carry laws typically exclude prosecutors. I have had kin who were prosecutors and they carried guns or at least had them if they wanted to. this lady is an embarrassment.
EdwardRyan
You afford yourself the pretzel logic of so many others and the selective use of statistics. Most of the mass murders in this country were committed through the negligence that lead the killers to obtain weapons, whether that be an uneducated mother of a mentally challenged boy with whom she was attempting to bond through the use of guns, or a lax background check. Perhaps if society had obligated her to take a course concerning gun ownership she might have kept the guns used to murder two dozen children, more secure. The fact is she obtained the guns with no societal oversight. This has nothing to do with her 2nd amendment rights. This has all to do with intelligence.
The Columbine killers obtained their weapons through the negligence of their parents. Most children killed in gun related accidents are due to ignorance, ignorance that could be reduced and lives that could be saved and guns that could still be owned by the gun toting advocates of today’s interpretation of the 2nd amendment.
The mental retard that murdered those people recently obtained a gun due entirely to the lax background check requirements. Three days passed so the store sold him the gun anyway. He was registered as not being able to obtain a gun. This is not due to those that advocate tighter controls but those advocating fewer or no controls.
The rise or fall in gun related crimes in New York or Chicago has nothing to do with obligating Americans to take a course, not unlike that for a drivers license, before strapping on that Glock.
The obvious weakness in the argument of the advocates of the absolutely unbridled interpretation of only one version of something that was written 240 years or so ago, is that it refuses to entertain any safety measures at all, in fear of what, normalcy.
This condition regarding the proliferation of guns in American society is a cancerous sore unique to the US. No one move will cure the disease but its effects could be mitigated somewhat if some controls were put in place.
The sad and sorry thing about this mindless adherence to a selective interpretation of something created in a different time under different conditions is that it holds such a high degree of paranoia that thousands of innocent lives a year is an acceptable collateral cost. The salve and massage for the proponents of fewer to no controls on gun ownership is that these innocents must die to protect a right to feel tough. The statistics prove that one is more likely to die if a gun is within reach, more guns equals more deaths, owning and even carrying a gun does nothing to keep one safe, only feeling perhaps safe, but most likely empowered; a lot of small people feeling big. Zimmerman is the poster child for that scenario.
There is nothing American or patriotic about refusing to analyze a sickness, only something stupid. But there is a lot of that going around.
Your reference to Hitler and China are simply ludicrous and somewhat scary as this sort of nonsense actually plays a part in the decision making in this country. You are a very scary guy Ed.
And just like Kim Davis should be locked out of public service and not locked up in jail.
Maybe she thinks people don’t have a “natural right” to own a gun and is only following her conscience?
She is only an “Acting District Attorney” which means she was likely “acting” when she swore an oath to support and defend the constitution. I’d be curious to hear her reasoning how this is constitutional. Maybe she doesn’t believe in natural, unalienable rights like many on this blog and those pesky first 10 amendments are subject to her interpretation.
Ninian writes, “The right to bear Arms does not equate with the right to own a gun. . . . There is nothing in the second amendment which confirms the requirement of ownership of born Arms, only that there is a right to bear them. . . .”
What does the word “keep” mean?
Yours is truly, to put it politely, one of the most unreasonable interpretations of the many interpretations of that law that I’ve come across.
The right to bear Arms does not equate with the right to own a gun.
There is nothing in the second amendment which confirms the requirement of ownership of born Arms, only that there is a right to bear them.
@ Ninnan
I suggest you re read the 2nd Amendment for comprehension this time.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If YOU do not want to own a gun or KEEP a gun, no one is going to force you. Your right to NOT own is not going to be infringed. I suggest that you not step on the rights of others.
An assistant prosecutor in her office should simply ask for approval to own a set of pistols. If she refuses the request then the assistant prosecutor should get the pistols anyway and take a photo of the pistols on her mantel at home and post the photo on the local website for law in that county. If the prosecutor fires the prosecutor then the lawsuit gets filed. Allege a violation of right to bear arms and a right of privacy. I keep my home private by shooting the intruders.
What is wrong with the New Yorkies anyway? There would be less crime in NYC if more people had guns in their homes. Yorkies are dorkies and I am not speaking of Yorky dogs.
Ban her from working in the state. She has no right to make such an Unconstitutional law. In fact, by law she has over stepped her authority by making a law and not just enforcing them.
District Attorneys make more enemies than anyone, they have a right to protect them selves, if they are doing their job lawfully and by the book.
Since DAs are law enforcers then she is also telling the cops they can not protect citizens with the use of a gun. Is she just banning guns or all weapons.
DAs working in the gang unit might have a serious problem with such a policy.
Here, DAs working gang units are of the rare few whose applications are actually approved by the sheriff. Hopefully that will change soon with the outcome of Peruta v. Gore.
ninianpeckitt:
Thank goodness you’re available from afar to interpret the Founding Fathers’ words for us. The Supreme Court, JT and others like him must all be fearing for their jobs.
I would not want to live next door to an assistant prosecuting attorney in that county. I would have to go bear arms against the perp who comes around to get even with that prosecutor for prosecuting them. The perps all know full well that the punk in the courtroom is gunless at home. So after my crazy stay in jail with the electric jacket on that they use to shock me into submissiveness, I know that I can go get even with one of the courthouse perps. That lady needs her head examined. I know that they already examined her rear end to figure out who is leaving the diarrea around the courthouse. Jeso.
Hskiprop – “Women do not want to risk their own lives in their own defense and are willing to pay others to do it for them.”
Not me. I have my CHL and own several guns, rifle and a shot gun. My daughters own their own guns too. I taught my daughters strength and to depend on themselves for protection and not anyone else.
People don’t want to get involved in crimes, even if a woman is being beat up. We can thank Gloria Steniem for this attitude and her women’s liberation campaign. She demonized chivalry. She is part of the equation to arm and protect yourself. This prosecutor is being ambiguous with her demand to disarm. She better start preaching chivalry.
By the way, I hope Gov. Cuomo’s attorney isn’t in this prosecutors district, as he is in the hospital recovering from being shot on the streets of New York City by a thug with a illegal gun. Thugs love this prosecutor.
Speaking of extrajudicial murders being readily accepted and legitimized by this blog….
Has anyone read the Magna Carta?
Or what if law enforcement pulls an American empire?? The extrajudicial murder of Osama Bin Laden by our Seal Team featured a surprise attack in which Bin Laden was actually unarmed.