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78 Alb. L. Rev. 789 (2014-2015)
New York's Not So SAFE Act: The Second Amendment in an Alice-in-Wonderland World Where Words Have No Meaning

handle is hein.journals/albany78 and id is 801 raw text is: NEW YORK'S NOT SO SAFE ACT: THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN AN ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND WORLD WHERE WORDS HAVE NO MEANING Stephen P. Halbrook* I. INTRODUCTION Use and manipulation of the pejorative term assault weapon is a classic case of an Alice-in-Wonderland world where words have no meaning.' The Second Amendment provides that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.2 Arms, such as rifles, pistols, and shotguns, do not lose their constitutional protection because the legislature describes them with a derogatory term. Indeed, no pronouncement of a legislature can forestall attack upon the constitutionality of the prohibition which it enacts by applying opprobrious epithets to the prohibited act .... The term assault weapon generically means a weapon used in an assault.4 Military usage refers to certain fully automatic machine guns as assault rifles.5 Military forces worldwide issue * Counsel for plaintiffs-appellants in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Cuomo, 990 F. Supp. 2d 349 (W.D.N.Y. 2013), appeal filed, No. 14-0036(L) (2d Cir. Jan. 3, 2014). J.D., Georgetown University Law Center; Ph.D., Philosophy, Florida State University. Books include The Founders' Second Amendment; Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment & the Right to Bear Arms (reissued as Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment & the Right to Bear Arms); Firearms Law Deskbook; That Every Man be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right; and Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and Enemies of the State. Argued Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), and other Supreme Court cases, and represented a majority of members of Congress as amici curiae in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Former assistant professor of philosophy at Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, and George Mason University; Research Fellow, Independent Institute; in law practice since 1978 in Fairfax, Virginia. For more information about the author and his works, see STEPHEN P. HALBROOK, PH.D.: ATTORNEY AT LAW, www.stephenhalbrook.com (last visited Feb. 23, 2015). 1 Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 354 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). 2 U.S. CONST. amend. II (emphasis added). I United States v. Carolene Prods. Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 (1938). 4 See People v. Alexander, 595 N.Y.S.2d 279, 282 (App. Div. 1993) (describing a tire iron used in an assault as the assault weapon). 5 U.S. ARMY, ST-HB-07-03-74, SMALL ARMS IDENTIFICATION AND OPERATION GUIDE- EURASIAN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES 105 (1973) (Assault rifles are short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle 789

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