I have become aware of the following e-mail, sent to NY law enforcement associations. The letter is from the New York Department of Criminal Justice Services:
At a time when all of us are finding ourselves doing more with less, a reminder about a resource available from New York State that can assist you in your efforts to solve cases, prevent crime and better serve and protect your communities.
The state has established a toll-free tip line – 1-855-GUNSNYS (1-855- 486-7697) to encourage residents to report illegal firearm possession. The tip line also allows for information to be submitted via text – individuals can text GUNTIP and their message to CRIMES (274637). While the state will provide the administrative support and fund the rewards, the investigation and validity of the tip will be up to each local department.
To spread the word about this free resource, New York State is planning a comprehensive campaign, including public service announcements that will air on television and radio stations across Upstate.
The tip line can provide your agencies with another avenue for receiving intelligence about crimes being committed in your jurisdictions. This initiative is designed for communities where no tip lines are in place and is not meant to replace existing gun tip lines.
Here’s how the tip line operates:
The New York State Police staff the tip line 24 hours a day. Upon receiving a call, troopers will solicit as much information as possible regarding a firearm tip, while allowing the individual to remain anonymous. The caller will be informed that this program is not the traditional gun buyback program but rather is focused on identifying individuals who are carrying an illegal firearm.
The State Police will in turn contact the appropriate police agency with the lead to initiate an investigation. Staff from the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) will follow up with that agency to determine the validity of the lead. Once the investigation is completed, the police agency would convey to DCJS the outcome of the investigation.
If the information leads to an arrest for the illegal possession of a firearm, the “tipster†will be awarded $500. DCJS staff will handle all of the financial transactions.
State Police staff will explain the program in its entirety upon notifying an agency that a lead has been generated for their jurisdiction. If you have any questions in the interim, please contact DCJS Deputy Commissioner Tony Perez in the Office of Public Safety at 518-485-7610.
Janine Kava
Director of Public Information
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services
Turn in your neighbors, folks, and get Cuomo’s 30 pieces of silver. Does your neighbor put 10 rounds in a magazine? Does he have a semi-auto shotgun you know about? Call the cops, there could be 500 bucks in it for you if he’s actually breaking the law, which is now most gun owners in New York. Is there such a crime problem in upstate New York that it’s worth airing just in that market and not the downstate market? Or is just that upstate is where most of the previously law-abiding gun owners live?
This is happening in America folks, or at least, where America used to be. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that their goal is, quite honestly, to disarm and pacify, and for those who won’t go along with that, imprison, and for those who won’t go along with that, the morgue. I mean, sure, they aren’t going door-to-door, but this is getting about as close to that as you can get.
I think Cuomo and his pals heard “We will not comply!” loud and clear. This is the reaction.
Remember, folks — the “SAFE” law didn’t exempt police, so the tip line is as applicable to them as to anyone else!
Yes- I want to denounce backwards EoTech boy. On general incompetence, let alone the illegal magazine.
My first reaction was the same as Rob’s. Now, do you get $500 per tip, $500 per arrest, $500 per charge, or $500 per conviction? There’s, what, 20,000 NYPD cops carrying three illegal magazines each, and each magazine has an illegal number of rounds loaded. Six infractions per cop, times 20,000, times $500 … carry the three … comes to $60 million for the tip, and each officer facing 42 years in prison.
If only….
I think George Bush said it best when he said you are either with us, or you are against us. NY is the latter.
I’m kinda looking forward to calling in this tip a few times a day when this goes into effect. May even need to call 911…
Don’t abuse the emergency line — I believe that might get you fined, at least.
Besides, they created this shiny new line. Make it worth their while.
Seriously, I just need to get three convictions of NY law enforcement officers and I can buy an AR15
This would seem to create a market for sexy-looking dummy guns among people who are otherwise clean as far as the law is concerned. Take them in an out of your house while glancing around furtively and let the neighbors call. Transfer them between cars on well-populated parking lots.
Also recall that during the last federal ban, blocked magazines were marketed that looked high-cap, but were mechanically blocked by a post under the follower that reduced them to five rounds. Buy some of them to flash. Keep them calls coming in.
Airsoft. Especially if you can get one of the airsoft Gatling guns.
And they’re airing this campaign with taxpayer money, of course.
That’s the biggest problem when the ruling party decides to attack something, as in guns; they can fight us with taxpayer money, but all we have are donations.
Again … just one more feather in our cap if we lose.
Or a feather in our cap if we win! (dangit, I hate not being able to edit what I write. I seem to become dyslexic whenever I comment here).
I’ve been working on getting the edit plugin working again, but more off than on, unfortunately.
Wait – the investigation and validity of the tip will be up to each department, but the state will pay the $500? Seems like an easy way for a conservative town to rake in big bucks – call in tips, validate, rinse and repeat.
They’re taking a page from the book written by the Stasi.
Have they considered that they’ll be paying gang members and drug dealers to turn in their own competition?
They’ll even take all the risk of removing their rivals for them!!
It’s subsidising gangs…and they’ll get exactly what they deserve.
Well, so much for “enforce the laws on the books.” I guess you’ve decided that’s traitorous now.
That was prior to the SAFE act. The SAFE act is a serious constitutional injury that will hopefully be remedied by the courts. We’ll support enforcing the laws against criminals, not taking otherwise law-abiding people, making them criminals, and then throwing them in prison for exercising a fundamental constitutional right.
Rephrase to “enforce Constitutionally-appropriate laws on the books”, and it all still fits. The NY SAFE Act does not meet Constitutional muster, was rammed through under suspect circumstances, and will not result in any measurable improvement in public safety. It never should have passed, and it probably will be struck down by the courts. *crosses fingers*
The fact that NYPD cops will never be prosecuted for carrying fully-loaded “high capacity” magazines does not make it any less illegal, according to the letter of the law. They are all now felons (albeit felons acting with official authority, but to me that’s even worse). The creation of this hotline – and I agree with Sebastian that it’s a response to gun owners refusing to comply – just drives another red-hot, razor-sharp wedge between the hallowed “Only Ones” and us reg’lar folk.
What kind of law are you talking about enforcing?
“All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.†(Marbury vs.Madison, 1803.)
That may be true, but there are a LOT of people in jail right now for violating such “null and void” laws, and there are about to be a whole lot more.
Still pining for the fugitive slave laws? Jim Crow?
I don’t know about this site, but if you look around enough I’m sure you’ll find examples of me ridiculing the “enforce existing [unconstitutional] laws” crowd, and I always have, to my recall. People who supported enforcing laws that many of us fought but failed years ago were indeed traitorous. Maybe that’s why I’ve never had any love for Republicans; without those three words, most of them wouldn’t have a damn thing to say about the RKBA.
This is an inaccurate characterization of the argument. The point being made when people say “enforce the laws ALREADY on the books” (which is more typical of what they actually say) is that we have plenty of gun control laws on the books, many of which are not being enforced, and it might make sense to TRY enforcing them before adding new ones. That’s not so unreasonable, is it?
I remember at the March 1 hearing for MD House Bill 294 (an assault weapons ban among other infringements), one of the committee members – in response to several witnesses pointing to the mere eleven or so straw purchasers actually prosecuted in recent years as evidence that new anti-straw-purchase legislation wasn’t needed – referenced a Washington Post investigative piece from I think 2009 that found thousands of straw purchases were happening in Maryland. My first thought was “somebody ought to tell the State’s Attorneys about all those straw purchases so they can get on with making all those cases!”
There’s also the fact that, if I’m not mistaken, the SAFE act grandfathers 10 round magazines as long as you don’t load more than 7 rounds in them. So the tip line conjures images of neighbors looking in on each other to make sure they’re not doing something in the privacy of their own homes that actually harms no one.
“it might make sense to TRY enforcing them before adding new ones. That’s not so unreasonable, is it?”
Actually, yes it is, and I’m not trying just to be argumentative.
First, there are many of us who opposed things like Instant Background Checks, even back when they were just a twinkle in the eye of the NRA, who loved them all to pieces. We knew what was going to happen, just as we know what is going to happen with their “expansion.” Their expansion is an example of that extra “trying” that you advocate. The next failure will be met with demands for still more expansion, and that seems a bit unreasonable, to me.
Second, the vindication of our claims at the times most of these laws were passed, that they were not going to work, for whatever reason, is what needs to be amplified. Government never needs encouragement to work harder at totalitarianism, when totalitarianism is within its powers.
Third, in practical terms, “enforcing existing laws” is going to entail requests for expanded funding, building more prisons, etc., etc., etc. In other words, advocacy for the expansion of the power and reach of government; and government almost by definition has to oppose the ability of the people to resist its expansion, ergo, has to want gun control. So advocacy of expanding the power and reach of government is to advocate gun control, and that indeed is unreasonable, for people who allege to oppose it.
So if it is anonymous, then how do they contact you to get your money?
Call and report the family members of Anti-gun politicians.
So, to clarify, gang, when you say enforce the laws on the books, you mean the laws on the books that pass muster with a broad cross-section of then gun rights community.
I respect you, and try not to ever treat you disrespectfully, but do we all get to choose the laws that we find acceptable, and disregard the rest? I for one am aware of many laws, such as the federal income tax laws, that I would rather opt out of, but have always thought that doing so wasn’t an option.
Consider this, for example. If one of these town officials says he won’t enforce a new gun law, you applaud him. What would you have thought if the National Park Service had said it wouldn’t allow concealed, despite the rider on the credit card reform bill?
We’re Americans. If we don’t like a law we’re free to fight for its repeal. We’re not free to disregard it. That gets liens put on your house, social services putting your kids in protective custody, stuff like that.
I’ll be back. I have to go re-transmit a Major League Baseball game without express written consent. Sheer lawlessness.
Do you not realize how many laws already restrict a right that the fundamental basis for our government says “shall not be infringed”?
How long would you have left MLK, Jr. in jail for his civil disobedience?
Free to fight it, if we can afford it while sitting in jail, while our house is ransacked and jobs are lost, families destroyed.
Why? Because some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more equal than others, and some rights exist in a document where they are not written.
At what point does willful following of the law become unconstitutional in its own right?
Oh — another thing — in this particular thread we’re saying to comply with their demands. They want tips about illegal guns? GIVE IT TO THEM GOOD AND HARD. They made most of the police service weapons illegal — so report every cop carrying one.
We get it — you think lobbying will turn back the effort of tyrants who ignored existing laws and our fundamental governing documents.
Many of us disagree.
We’re Americans. If we don’t like a law we’re free to fight for its repeal. We’re not free to disregard it. That gets liens put on your house, social services putting your kids in protective custody, stuff like that.
Hi, my name’s Peter Hamm, and I’m blissfully unaware of the proud tradition of civil disobedience of manifestly unjust laws in this country.
^^This poster beat me to it.
I considered your example. Please consider my responses:
The town official (or county sheriff) can choose not to enforce a new gun law they find unconstitutional, or is effectively unenforceable. This is in their prerogative. For example, the ban on “high-capacity” magazines includes grandfathering, but magazines don’t contain date stamps or serial numbers, so there’s no recognizable difference between a new, illegal magazine, and an old, legal one. In the case of the NY SAFE Act, having more than seven in a magazine is illegal, but carrying seven-plus-one-chambered is legal. How do you prove the gun owner loaded eight and cycled the action (illegal), versus loading seven, cycling, and ejecting the magazine to add another one (legal)? Unenforceable.
The credit-card-bill rider nullified the National Park Service’s ban on carrying concealed. That ban does not exist anymore. NPS does NOT have the option of enforcing a law that doesn’t exist, nor do they have the authority to make up their own laws.
Given these very different scenarios, it’s perfectly natural that we would applaud one, while deriding the other. They are not the same thing.
How do you give someone a standing ovation on a message board???
Archer deserves one…….
Thanks for the compliment. :)
“Roll over” says the grabber.
I’d rather revolt.
I’d like to know what you would do, of it were made a felony to advocate for any law that would forbid any free person from owning a gun. Would you just quietly accept it? Or would you fight it though and nail? And if law enforcement created a hotline to turn in friends and neighbors, would you be happy about it, or troll it?
I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that your actions would mirror the advice that you would give to a potential rape victim: lay back and think of all those lives “saved” by the laws that prevent her from having a gun.
That is, you don’t strike me as the type that would fight against injustice.
I was surprised to see all the people responding to a troll so I did a little digging… Holy cow, Peter Hamm is a Brady operative?
It is crazy to think that a “leading” national organization like Brady has its senior leaders engaging with bloggers on social media. On one hand the outreach and willingness to engage is frankly surprising, because most gun control people prefer Reasoned Discourse or The New Civility. But it speaks to how irrelevant some of these groups are that they are down to this level. Chris Cox isn’t trolling the Brady facebook page…
BTW maybe we should report this contact to the White House. I thought all the Brady Bunch folks were under a gag order? I wonder if this breaches their agreement and compromises Brady “access” to the Chicago sausage machine?
There is a difference between enforcement, and non-enforcement.
It is one thing to choose not to enforce and infringe upon others. It is another thing to choose to infringe upon another and ignore a law that protects the rights of people.
Gun control targets the innocent.
Remember, snitches get stitches.
“snitches get stitches”
Really, historically we have been extremely easy on Tories, compared to what the colonists were doing to the King’s representatives in the run-up to April 19, 1775.
I wonder what the over under is on the life expectancy of the first neighbor to do something like this anyway?
Depends on the neighborhood. Ain’t gonna happen in the ‘hood.
People have no concept of how unconstitutional the laws they live under are. Study some history. Realize that the bank bailouts were theft from every man, woman and child in this country to prop up bankers that should have been jailed. Realize how corrupt the system is. Realize the people are being bribed with their own money to vote for the people who are wrecking them. Realize that the majority do not understand Liberty at all.
Go here: http://oll.libertyfund.org/
Read Bastiat’s The Law for yourself. Read the founders. Read Locke. And cry for America.
People tolerated too much, and did not have the will or guts to remind tyrants what their just reward is. People have been brainwashed through the schools from kindergarten on up that all violence is bad and to let “Authority” handle everything. BULL! The People ARE the Authority. All the power of government comes from the people. If the SYSTEM is Corrupt then how can you fix the problem within the system? You can’t. The courts are corrupt, and the whole idea of stare decisis is wrong. The people are the final arbiters of what is constitutional and what is not, not the courts.
“The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.” – Bastiat
Look around you. How accurate is that quote to today?
You think these tyrants are going to give up their plunder and power voluntarily?
Vote our way out of this? HA. The lessons of history are clear. Too much corruption. I doubt the financial system will make it 2 more years.
The people have been dumbed down by horrible education, cannot tell right from wrong or don’t care which is which, and vote themselves money because they are too stupid to realize that once the productive have been dealt with no one can afford to feed them and they are going to be dead. Look at any socialist revolution. And that’s what this is. The Frankfurt School. Antonio Gramsci. This guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke
America has been softened up incrementally, by people working in education, news and government.
We can hope the courts correct it. But what if they don’t?
Wickard V Filburn. Wrong. Never corrected. Slaughter-House. GCA ’34 and ’68 totally unconstitutional. Never fixed. Miller. Wrong. Never revisited. over 100 years worth of corruption in the system.
There comes a time when going along to get along doesn’t work. If they confiscate the guns, kiss your ass and your children goodbye. You KNOW what socialists do to their enemies. Even if you peacefully give up your arms, THEY WILL BE BACK! You may buy a few years, but you give up any chance to do anything about it.
My God I hope we can turn this around peacefully. But if you let them disarm you without a fight you are as surely dead as if you had fought them. At least if you fight you can make it cost them.
Kipling understood.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
I have only one quibble with your wonderful essay: Your semantics when you say “You KNOW what socialists do to their enemies.”
It’s what statists do to their enemies. Socialists. Fascists. Monarchists. Godly governments. Constitutional governments. Republics. Democracies. States. No State can tolerate dissidence, and no State will tolerate dissidence. Never, ever, expect one to.
…Bloomburg not only has guns, but hired thugs carrying them…
Now I will read and find out that 37 of 38 comments above already collected their $500 bounty.
I can already think of a few people to report.
I imagine I’ll split the bounty 50/50 with NRA-ILA.
Open New York phonebook, start going down the pages, report everyone.
Based on the response we see when anyone is suspected of having arms, and adding that to what they consider illegal arms now, I think A)That’s akin to SWATting. and B)SWATs gonna be awfully tired. And missing a few members before you get to “B” in the phonebook.
So do these snitch reports constitute probable cause for warrants to be issued? Couldn’t a cop just go up to your front door, whip out his cellphone, call in a snitch report, then bust the door down with the warrant that was issued based on the probable cause created by his own phoned in snitch report?
Anyway, I think the best plan I saw suggested here is to call in snitch reports on the family members of anti-gun politicians. Brilliant!
It isn’t a snitch report.
It is credible intelligence from a confidential informant.
How do you think the war on drugs is played? They’ll get their warrant, shoot the dog, terrorize the children, and cuff the parents. If there’s no actual evil mags present then they can still tear apart the house searching.
It is an Intolerable Act. They want gun owners in prison or dead so the law will likely be enforced accordingly.
Under current 4th Am. jurisprudence, an anonymous tip, absent some corroboration, is not suffucient to support probable cause. It would take some corroborating observations by LEOs to add to that tip to reach the PC level. And as to magazines, observation would be entirely worthless. There is no way whatsoever for any officer to know, by external observation, how many rounds are in a magazine, or to differentiate between legal magazines or illegal ones; they look exactly alike.
Most important at this point, New York gunowners need to be educated – immediately – as to how to respond to requests by LEOs to check the size of their magazines or the number rounds they are carrying. The appropriate answer to such an inquiry, if one is stopped, is “am I being detained?” If the answer is no, leave. If the answer is yes, inquire as to the reasonable suspicion for same, knowing that observation of a lawful act is not reasonable suspicion to detain (a recent case cited here just the other day makes the point). Do not cease asking those questions, and insist on an answer. If you do not get an appropriate answer, slowly walk away – do not run, as flight might make an encounter you could have legally survived with no harm done into a probable cause encounter. If you are told to stop, or worse, physically restrained, you are detained. At that point, consider yourself effectively under arrest and make no statements whatsoever.
If a request is made to examine your magazines – which is, of course, a request to consent to search – the correct answer is “No, sir, I will not consent to a search of my property.” A polite “now piss off” to follow might also be appropriate, but YMMV.
As I wrote the other day, NEVER make a statement if you remotely suspect you are the subject of the investigation, and NEVER EVER EVER consent to any search. EVER. Especially if you are a New York gun owner.
Next thing is, they’ll start working on the kids in school to get ’em to rat out their gun-owning parents. An atrocity that has a long tradition in socialist circles.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov
“An atrocity that has a long tradition in socialist circles.”
It seems to me things like DARE had/has support in wider circles than just “socialists,” unless you want to quibble about who should be defined as a socialist.
I assume that these anonymous tip lines somehow manage to clear the 6th Amendment right to face your accuser, but can anyone enlighten me as to how? Does the state become the witness against you, and nevermind how the evidence came to be its attention?
That right only applies in court, and specifically only at trial. It does not apply in preliminary hearings (I have no idea if NY is a prelim state or not; my state is), and it does not apply at the stage where officers are following up on a tip. Just remember that a tip is not probable cause, and refuse to cooperate. If you are not detained, leave. If you are detained, make no statements. And NEVER consent to a search “just to check up.”
Folks, most of law enforcement is on our side here, I suspect. Those who are not must be resisted. Just be careful not to create more problems for yourself. We are on the side of right here. Politeness goes a long way, even as you resist.
To our friends trapped behind enemy lines in NY, find places to stash your “illegal” guns til this is over, bury them if you have to, but keep fighting this.
DDOS their hotline with “the policeman has a scary gun”
I wonder what would happen if they started receiving tips to the homes of prominent gun control advocates? I am sure more than a few have illegal guns — and just the experience of having their front door kicked in would be pretty instructive to them.
Prominent gun control advocates are members of the noblesse de robe, who the gendarmerie would never dare offend by raiding their chateaux. The tips should be to the homes of unprominent gun control advocates, whose names will not be recognized before their pets are killed, their families terrorized, and their property destroyed.