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The origin of the Sullivan Act
NY Post: The Strange Birth of NY's Gun Laws.
I researched the Sullivan Act for an amicus brief. Tim Sullivan started it out as a very narrow bill -- it just made unlicensed concealed carry a 3 year felony, rather than a misdemeanor. Then NYC's medical examiner lobbied him to pul all the other provisions in, and he agreed. But when he spoke on the floor, which he hated to do, he only talked about the three year penalty.
Even as first enacted, in 1911, it was nothing like what we see today. It required some dealer paperwork, but not registration. There was no provision forbidding open carry. It applied only to handguns. The permits were "may issue" to the max -- as in a felony could get one, if the judge allowed it. (The only bars were to juveniles and non-citizens_/
Comments
O Yeah. NYS Resident here. Amazing a thug wrote the firearm law, isn’t it? That Act had more to it. At the time the Irish controlled NYC Gov’t, and they didn’t want other ethnic groups armed. It was also a time of labor unrest. Sullivan Act aided the Elite’s control of union organizers.
GeeWhiz from what I read and been told NYS Sullivan Act doesn’t restrict handgun ownership. It restricts handgun possession
Posted by: mark-1 at January 31, 2012 04:43 PM
On paper the Sullivan Act may not have applied to long guns but in 1911 a German tourist disembarked from an ocean liner in New York with a rifle over his shoulder and was arrested and jailed.
Posted by: Charles Nichols at February 1, 2012 03:42 PM
Charles - That was possibly selective prosecution because when I lived in NYC as a teen I often carried my rifle on the subway and the streets as I went to the range and also to meet people to go hunting.
Was the gun cased - that would have been important :)
Posted by: Rich at February 2, 2012 01:54 PM
Rich, he was carrying it over his shoulder.
Posted by: Charles Nichols at February 2, 2012 11:58 PM