{"id":1529125,"date":"2022-06-27T08:04:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1529125"},"modified":"2022-06-27T08:04:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:04:17","slug":"new-yorks-unconstitutional-gun-law-was-written-by-a-notorious-corrupt-thug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-yorks-unconstitutional-gun-law-was-written-by-a-notorious-corrupt-thug\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s Unconstitutional Gun Law Was Written By A Notorious, Corrupt Thug"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnew-yorks-unconstitutional-gun-law-was-written-by-a-notorious-corrupt-thug%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1529125&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Screen-Shot-2022-06-24-at-9.35.56-AM-1024x565-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On the morning of January 23, 1911, an unstable Harvard graduate with the theatrical name of Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough walked up to the novelist David Graham Phillips on a Manhattan street and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1911\/01\/26\/archives\/brother-in-sanitarium-a-younger-goldsborough-was-under-treatment.html\">unloaded<\/a> six shots from his .32-caliber pistol into him. Goldsborough, who believed the novelist had defamed his sister, reloaded his gun, placed it against his temple, and pulled the trigger. Goldsborough died instantly. <\/p>\n<p>The murder-suicide shocked the city. Although the crime destroyed many lives, none of them would change history quite like George Petit le Brun, the man who performed the autopsies on the bodies at the city coroner\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI reasoned that the time had come to have legislation passed that would prevent the sale of pistols to irresponsible persons,\u201d he later wrote. After two years of imploring local politicians to institute gun control laws, le Brun finally found an ally in Timothy D. Sullivan, one of the most corrupt politicians of his age, a Tammany Hall operator known to New Yorkers as \u201cBig Tim.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the big talking points in the aftermath of the Supreme Court\u2019s <em>New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/23\/the-supreme-courts-gun-decision-is-a-huge-win-for-the-constitution\/\">decision<\/a> last week\u2014it is mentioned in nearly every news piece\u2014is that New York\u2019s \u201cmay issue\u201d permit law had been on the books for more than <em>100 years<\/em>. And that\u2019s a long time. But time does not make a law constitutional or efficacious.<\/p>\n<p>The Sullivan Act, passed in 1911, was the nation\u2019s first statewide gun control law. It required New Yorkers who possessed firearms small enough to be concealed to ask local cops\u2014who could deny the request not just to \u201cirresponsible persons\u201d but to anyone, and for any reason, they liked\u2014for a license. <\/p>\n<p>People caught owning guns without one would face a misdemeanor charge, and those carrying guns without one a felony. In addition to handguns, the law prohibited the possession or carrying of weapons such as brass knuckles, sandbags, blackjacks, bludgeons, and bombs, as well as possessing or carrying a dagger, \u201cdangerous knife,\u201d or razor \u201cwith intent to use the same unlawfully.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such discretionary and capricious gun laws would allow corrupt cops to disarm rival gangs that threatened Tammany Hall\u2019s authority or undermined its political interests. Big Tim\u2019s cronies could use the law to punish business owners who didn\u2019t pay protection money or deny entire neighborhoods the ability of self-defense. <\/p>\n<p>Although Big Tim was corrupt in every way imaginable\u2014he was involved in bribery, gambling, prostitution, and rigging elections, for starters\u2014historians like Terry Golway assure Sullivan really wanted to clean up neighborhoods \u201cawash in cheap pistols.\u201d \u201cHis law is now off the books,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/06\/23\/new-york-scotus-gun-laws-00041694\">writes<\/a> Golway, \u201cHis wisdom remains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One would have to suspend disbelief to accept that some of the most corrupt bureaucrats of the age, people who weren\u2019t beneath exploiting women and children or shaking down businesses, wouldn\u2019t abuse a malleable law that empowered them to deny their political opponents the right to defend themselves. Moreover, whatever Sullivan\u2019s intentions were, there was no decline in gang violence or murder in New York in the ensuing years. <\/p>\n<p>In 1911, there were 366 homicide <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lvcriminaldefense.com\/ny-1860-1920\/\">arrests<\/a> in New York. By 1920, there were 743. Then, like now, criminals remained unconcerned with attaining proper licensing before engaging in criminality. Only law-abiding citizens cared. We will never know how many shopkeepers and immigrants were left defenseless to thugs in those years.<\/p>\n<p>Even after the fall of Tammany, getting a gun for self-defense was prohibitively difficult. Essentially, the Second Amendment didn\u2019t exist. The wealthy\u2014Trumps, Sulzbergers, and Rockefellers, among many other notables\u2014had no problem obtaining licenses over the years. This leaves poor and minorities, who often lack the resources or time to figure out the process, without their rights. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s always been a mystery to me why those critical of law enforcement are fine with allowing them to make key decisions. Then, as now, it was up to citizens to beg officials to allow them to defend themselves against subjective reasons that allow politicians, bureaucrats, and law enforcement to pick and choose who gets to practice their rights.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the morning of January 23, 1911, an unstable Harvard graduate with the theatrical name of Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough walked up to the novelist David Graham Phillips on a Manhattan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1529125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}