Judge Upholds New York Gun Controls, Except for Crazy Rule on Gun Rounds

A federal judge ruled today
that the
hastily-written-and-passed gun control laws pushed through in
New York as a response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School
shootings are, for the most part, legal. Happy New Year, Second
Amendment supporters in the Empire State!
From the Associated Press:

A federal judge on Tuesday upheld most of New York’s new gun
control law, rejecting arguments that its bans on large-capacity
magazines and the sale of some semi-automatic rifles violate Second
Amendment rights.

Judge William Skretny in Buffalo concluded those provisions are
constitutional because they’re related to achieving an “important
governmental interest” in public safety. Those two features make
guns more lethal, he wrote, citing testimony submitted in
the case.

The law “applies only to a subset of firearms with
characteristics New York state has determined to be particularly
dangerous and unnecessary for self-defense,” Skretny wrote. “It
does not totally disarm New York’s citizens, and it does not
meaningfully jeopardize their right to self-defense.”

Skretny upheld the ban on magazines that hold more than 10
bullets, but he struck down a restriction on gun owners loading
more than seven bullets in legal 10-round magazines. He said that
appears to be “an arbitrary number.”

Those who have followed the passage of this law, like Reason’s
Jacob Sullum, know that that this “arbitrary number” exists because
Gov. Mario Cuomo tried to establish a
maximum magazine limit of seven bullets, without realizing that
seven-bullet magazines are nearly non-existent. So instead he
created this silly rule that gun-owners can only put seven bullets
in their 10-round magazines.

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