Potter 1
Drew Potter
Mr. Adamoschek
English 101k
13 March, 2016
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states that “A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Supreme Court also confirmed in the District of Columbia vs.
Heller (2008) ruling that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. This means that
the people of our country have the right to arm themselves without undue restrictions. With
the introduction of the SAFE act in New York State, this is becoming more and more difficult.
After several different mass shootings in schools and colleges around the country, the New York
State governor decided to pass a law that would redefine and ban assault weapons in order to
reduce the likelihood of a mass shooting in our state. This act also reduced the number of
bullets in a magazine from ten to seven which has since been struck down by the 2nd Circuit of
the United States Court of Appeals. The Safe Act bans many attachments and accessories that
can be added to the redefined assault rifle. As with most of our laws, the people affected by
any law are the law abiding citizens not the people committing the crimes. The New York State
Safe Act should be repealed because it does not accomplish what the Governor intended of
making our state safer.
The SAFE Act redefined the term assault weapon and created registration requirements
for those who lawfully owned them before the enactment of the statute. As of January 15,
Potter 2
2013 the term assault weapon was redefined as the following, “‘Assault weapon means a semi–
automatic rifle that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least one of the
following characteristics: a folding or telescoping stock; a pistol grip that protrudes
conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; a thumbhole stock; a second handgrip or
protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; a bayonet mount; a flash suppressor
or muzzle break or muzzle compensator or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash
suppressor or muzzle break or muzzle compensator; or a grenade launcher.” Based on these
characteristics, it is clear that the new definition of an assault weapon has nothing to do with
the rate of fire of the weapon but it is mainly a cosmetic ban which the gun industry
circumvented with simple modifications to the guns that were affected. To prove this point,
