So New York’s stringent new gun-control law bans guns or magazines capable of holding more than seven shots. Everybody’s safer now, except that — in the Gov. Cuomo-led rush to pass the bill — nobody thought to exempt the police, making all those Glocks felonious.
The Rolling Stones once sang that “every cop is a criminal,” but even they didn’t mean it as a prescription for legislation.
Yes, Cuomo argues (unpersuasively) that the ban still doesn’t apply to cops, but Albany is amending things just to “clarify.”
Maybe someone might have noticed the problem before the bill passed — if legislators had had time to, you know, read the bill and talk about it and maybe even hold hearings. But Cuomo issued a “message of necessity” to allow skipping the state’s normal “waiting period” before passage of legislation.
Perhaps the governor feared that, if lawmakers took the time for intelligent discussion, the bill might not pass?
Maybe so, but — as they say in the software business — that’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
After every tragedy, legislation gets rushed through that’s typically just a bunch of stuff that various folks had long wanted all along, but couldn’t pass before. Then it’s hustled through as a “solution” to the tragedy, even though close inspection usually reveals that the changes wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy, and don’t even have much to do with it.
The goal, thus, is to prevent close inspection through a combination of heavy-handed legislative techniques and bullying rhetoric: If you don’t want to pass our bill without reading it, you must hate the children.
Over the years, we’ve gotten a lot of lousy legislation this way — the Patriot Act, for example, about which I wrote a column something like this one back in 2001. We’ve gotten it because politicians like to manipulate voters and avoid scrutiny.
But why let them?
I’d like to propose a “waiting period” for legislation. No bill should be voted on without hearings, debate and a final text that’s available online for at least a week. (A month would be better. How many bills really couldn’t wait a month?)
And if the bill is advertised as addressing a “tragedy” or named after a dead child, this period should double.
After all, people want waiting periods for guns. Yet, statistically, the percentage of guns involved in crimes is much lower than the percentage of politicians involved in crimes.
Seriously, legislation is supposed to be a deliberative process. When they don’t want to deliberate, it’s because they’re hiding something. And they’re hiding it because they don’t want you to know about it.
I’d also add another provision: Anytime a “tragedy” bill has to be amended because slipshod legislating led to flaws, the bill to fix it must list the names of those who voted for the original, in bold type, at the beginning under the heading “IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T READ THE BILL OR THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE VOTING.”
Will we ever see anything like this? Of course not. It’s politician-control. You can’t expect a politician to vote for that. Regulation and responsibility are for the little people.
By the way, the state senators who voted for the bill that made cops into criminals are: Eric Adams, Joseph Addabbo, Tony Avella, Philip Boyle, Neil Breslin, David Carlucci, Ruben Diaz, Martin Dilan, Adriano Espaillat, Simcha Felder, John Flanagan, Charles Fuschillo, Michael Gianaris, Terry Gipson, Martin Golden, Mark Grisanti, Kemp Hannon, Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Brad Hoylman, Timothy Kennedy, Jeffrey Klein, Liz Krueger, Andrew Lanza, George Latimer, Kenneth LaValle, Karl Marcellino, Jack Martins, Velmanette Montgomery, Ted O’Brien, Kevin Parker, José Peralta, Bill Perkins, Gustavo Rivera, John Sampson, James Sanders, Diane Savino, Jose Serrano, Dean Skelos, Malcolm Smith, Dan Squadron, Toby Ann Stavisky, Andrea Stewart-Cousins and David Valesky.
If you see ’em, you might suggest they read a bit closer, next time.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee.