Opinion
- New York’s Deceit in Ratifying Rights: New York’s leaders reluctantly ratified the Bill of Rights to avoid being seen as British loyalists. Giving birth to the Deep State operatives of today.
- Hostility to Armed Self-Defense: New York’s government has a deep-rooted hostility towards the right to armed self-defense and is actively undermining this right.
- Manipulative Government Actions: The New York Government uses propaganda and subterfuge to erode Second Amendment rights, controlling the populace under the pretense of public safety.
Architect of the Capitol, IMG Public Image
New York – New York never accepted the idea of a natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Sure, the State ratified the Nation’s Bill of Rights, which prominently included the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment. However, New York’s elder statesmen who agreed to that were likely never happy doing so.
They probably only did so to avoid many Americans inferring justifiably that the State was a viper’s nest of “Tories” (Loyalists to the Crown). At the War’s conclusion, they may have continued to harbor bad feelings about the fledgling Nation. Drawing this conclusion is not unsound.
New York alone furnished about 23,000 loyalist Red Coat troops, perhaps as many as all the other colonies combined.
“The loyalist fighters aroused a vengeful hatred among the patriots . . . and when taken in battle they were treated as traitors” [See the article in Brittanica].
Consider that number, 23,000, in relation to the total number of people residing in New York during the American Revolution: 25,000.
“The largest cities in the colonies were Philadelphia, Pa, (43,000), New York, N.Y. (25,000), Boston, MA (16,000), Charleston, S.C. (12,000), and Newport, R.I. (11,000)” [See the article in American Battlefield Trust].
A Further Note:
Over the course of the war, about 231,000 men served in the Continental Army, though never more than 48,000 at any one time, and never more than 13,000 at any one place. The sum of the Colonial militias numbered upwards of 145,000 men.
At its peak, the British Army had upwards of 22,000 men at its disposal in North America to combat the rebellion. An additional 25,000 Loyalists, faithful to Great Britain, participated in the conflict as well. [See the article in American Battlefield Trust].
A second article from the same source points out that of the “25,000 Americans [who] served the crown, some [fought] in British regiments, but most in ‘provincial’ regiments with other Loyalists.”
If this number is accurate and New York did provide the Crown with 23,000 troops, as cited supra, then New York provided the bulk of “Tories” (“Loyalists” or “Royalists”) who fought for England—for King George III against America’s “Patriots”—over ninety percent of the total.
Had not 376,000 “Armed Patriots” taken up arms against a Tyrant, America would have remained a colony of the British Monarch and, thereafter, a component of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth was formed in 1931.
In the end, many Loyalists simply left America. About 80,000 of them fled to Canada or Britain during or just after the war. Because Loyalists were often wealthy, educated, older, and Anglican, the American social fabric was altered by their departure. American history brands them as traitors. But most were just trying to maintain the lifestyles to which they had become accustomed. [See the article in “U.S. History”].
How many New York “Loyalists” slithered back to England with the Red Coats or to Canada at the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War?
No doubt the Loyalists remaining in the new Nation would loathe the notion of an “armed American citizenry.” Weren’t these Loyalists the progenitors of today’s “Neoliberal Globalist” “elites?”
Of those who remained surreptitiously in the United States—many in New York—would they not operate as a “Fifth Column” to better insulate themselves from public observation and public accounting and quietly insinuate themselves throughout the States and the Federal Government, too?
Do their actions not demonstrate their enduring hostility to the Country, the Nation’s Constitution, and the American People, as demonstrated in State and Federal dictates?
In New York, this fanatical and enduring hostility toward a free, sovereign, and well-armed citizenry manifests as a refusal to recognize a person’s dire need to exercise his right to armed self-defense against violent predatory attack.
Does not this State Government mindset explain the expansive time, money, and expense expended to destroy the exercise of the right to armed self-defense?
Over time, it has become fashionable in some circles to express outrage toward firearms and those who wish to exercise their right to bear them. The New York Government no longer feels it necessary to hide its revulsion toward firearms and its visible contempt for those who cherish their sacred right to keep and bear them.
To this day, and after several renditions made to the State’s Constitution, no individual right to armed self-defense exists or ever existed in the Bill of Rights of New York’s Constitution. And none is forthcoming.
Even in New York’s first Constitution, reference to an armed person was specifically grounded in the notion of a “militia.” See discussion infra.
This provision was dropped but would appear later in various iterations.
However, reference to “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” would be relegated to statute only. You will not find the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” delineated in the State Constitution.
Moreover, the ‘militia’ clause in the latest rendition of the State Constitution is not a “right,” for it does not appear in the State Constitution’s “Bill of Rights,” Article I, but instead, in Article XII, “Defense.” See discussion infra.
The first NY Constitution, a creature of the Legislature, did include a portion of the Declaration of Independence. However, that, too, was dropped from all later versions.
What explains these apparent anomalies between the first New York Constitution and later versions?
Article XL of the original Constitution, enacted in 1777, says—
“And whereas it is of the utmost importance to the safety of every State that it should always be in a condition of defence; and it is the duty of every man who enjoys the protection of society to be prepared and willing to defend it; this convention therefore, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State, doth ordain, determine, and declare that the militia of this State, at all times here-after, as well in peace as in war, shall be armed and disciplined, and in readiness for service. That all such of the inhabitants of this State being of the people called Quakers as, from scruples of conscience, may be averse to the bearing of arms, be therefrom excused by the legislature; and do pay to the State such sums of money, in lieu of their personal service, as the same may, in the judgment of the legislature, be worth.
And that a proper magazine of warlike stores, proportionate to the number of inhabitants, be, forever hereafter, at the expense of this State, and by acts of the legislature, established, maintained, and continued in every county in this State [emphasis my own].” See the article in the Historical Society of New York Courts.
Did this early Constitution, enacted during the commencement of the American Revolution, serve to promote the false idea the New York Legislature stood with America’s Patriots when it did not and had sought to cloak where its true loyalties lay?
And, knowing that 23,000 New York Loyalists did serve the Crown during the American Revolution, wasn’t it the State Legislature’s fervent belief and wish that New York’s militia could serve as a provincial military arm in service to George III and not to the Continental Army? Likely, so. Most of the provincial arm of the Crown (the militia) were New York Loyalists.
Yet, New York’s militia would not be necessary after the British Empire lost the colonies. The State Legislature could dispense with it.
Perhaps having recognized the U.S. would never again become a colony of the British Empire, the drafters of New York’s First Constitution may have quietly decided to remove any reference to the right of the people to keep and bear arms lest that force one day turn against those “elite.”
The concept of a ‘militia’ for “defense” would undergo several iterations in the continuing development of the State Constitution. The aforementioned is the latest.
Presently, New York Art. XII § 1, which consists of only one Section titled “Defense,” sets forth,
“The defense and protection of the state and of the United States is an obligation of all persons within the state. The legislature shall provide for the discharge of this obligation and for the maintenance and regulation of an organized militia.”
Reference to the “militia” appears prominently in two sections of New York law: the State Constitution and New York’s Civil Rights Law.
In the latter instance, it appears with the independent clause “the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.” However, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed” appears only once in New York law: the Civil Rights Law. See discussion, infra.
The “elites” have always controlled the New York Government, and wealthy, powerful “elites” have assumed firm control over the Federal Government.
They have always been suspicious of the “Common Man,” who happens to claim a right to armed self-defense to safeguard life and well-being.
That threat to the “Common Man” in America now comes from those who control the levers of power inside the Country. They have joined forces with ruthless elements outside it. New York’s militia is in service to Tyrants.
New York revised its Constitution four times since first ratifying it in 1777, eleven years before the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788.
The first New York Constitution did not have a formal Bill of Rights. The State Legislature would add that ten years later.
That first Constitution, enacted in 1777, was “statutory” (i.e., as enacted by the New York Legislature, not the people at the “Ballot Box”). The State’s first Bill of Rights was statutory as well. The New York Legislature enacted it in 1787.
New York’s first true Constitution (the second version, 1821) required a vote by the people to become effective. Read about this in History of the New York Courts (PDF).
One must wonder: Did not the average person in New York, “the Common Man,” wish to include language in the “Bill of Rights” of the State Constitution, that mirrored the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution? Was there any debate on the subject?
The New York Legislature had no interest in that and never offered it as an amendment to be voted on by the people. The Legislature opposed the idea, given the import of such an amendment in a document of the nature of a “constitution,” unlike a run-of-the-mill statute.
A right to armed self-defense, reflecting the language of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, did eventually make its way into the “Law” of New York—New York Statute (not in the State’s Constitution).
A person must wonder why it appeared at all in New York Law.
Was this done merely to placate those New Yorkers who insisted on some language somewhere in New York Law?
That language would never appear as a Constitutional Right for New Yorkers. And, applying the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to the States—through the U.S. Supreme Court imprimatur—would not occur until the McDonald ruling in 2010.
Even then, it took over a century for that to happen.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms,” as it appears in New York Law, is almost identical in wording to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
However, it appears in the New York Statute. This means it is a manmade construct only, not a natural law right preexistent in Man.
The Legislature intentionally kept “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” out of the New York State Constitution to prevent anyone from proclaiming it as natural law bestowed on Man by the Divine Creator.
The statutory right is in Article 2 (Bill of Rights) of the Civil Rights Law, NY CLS Civ R § 4 of the Consolidated Laws of the State of New York.
However, it is important to point out that this “Bill of Rights” in New York’s Civil Rights Law does not have the same weight as the State’s Constitutional “Bill of Rights.” Therefore, it is not considered fundamental, unmodifiable, and eternal.
The notion of two Bill of Rights in New York law is understandable but no less shocking. The Legislature has drawn a bright line between “rights” it treats as manmade and temporal and those it accepts as “natural law” and eternal.
Those forces that control the people of New York have refused to acknowledge the right to self-defense (of which armed self-defense is but an aspect) as a natural, “eternal” law).
In New York, true self-defense does not exist in the person. The New York Government does not recognize it and begrudges those who assert it. That explains the obstacles the New York Government has created to frustrate those citizens in New York who desire to exercise it.
Self-defense is a prerogative of Government that it bestows on a person as a revocable privilege.
This explains why the Government talks incessantly about “Public Safety” that accrues to the Government and carefully avoids mention of “Personal Safety” that accrues to the individual.
The New York Legislature enacted the Statute pertaining to the right of the people of New York to keep and bear arms on February 17, 1909. It remains in effect as originally enacted. The New York Government has repeatedly shown this New York “Civil” Right to mean little, as the phrase “cannot be infringed” is routinely, vigorously, infringed by the State Government.
The Democrat-Party-controlled Legislature in Albany has not sought to repeal the Statutory right of the people to keep and bear arms or modify its language to date. It doesn’t because it need not do so and likely doesn’t wish to make waves by doing so, at least now.
Instead, the Legislature has used subterfuge and wile to slowly chisel away at the exercise of the right—an insidious, inexorable process, but one leading to the same result, albeit without fanfare and bravado.
This would likely be less easy for the Legislature to accomplish if the Right existed in Article I of the State Constitution instead of Article 2 of the State’s Civil Rights Law.
To urge a substantial number of the New York public to support the slow strangulation of armed self-defense in New York, the State Government and a collaborative, sympathetic Press have continuously used propaganda to gain the public’s cooperation with or, at least, acquiescence with its policy aims pertaining to exercise of that right.
That Government policy does nothing to serve the public’s interest in securing its safety and well-being. The Government aims to corral and control the civilian populace.
The State aims to render the New York public impotent, wholly dependent on the Government to provide for the public’s safety and well-being.
The lack of a constitutional framework for exercising the right to armed self-defense in New York inevitably results in constant frustration for the citizens who reside or work there.
The State does nothing concrete to ensure effective “Public Safety.” Yet it creates roadblocks that constantly frustrate the public’s rights and responsibilities and the need to ensure its “Personal Safety.”
This frustration is aptly reflected in the State’s nascent anti-Second Amendment legislation.
That very early legislation preceded the Sullivan Act, but it laid the groundwork for it and more sophisticated, complex, and all-encompassing legislation subsequent to Sullivan through the ensuing decades and centuries.
The New York Government has given New Yorkers no reprieve. It constantly devises ever more insidious policies to constrain the exercise of the right to armed self-defense.
Next, we will examine the precursors to Sullivan, the seeming reasons for its enactment, and its import.
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