AFAICT, nowhere is anybody claiming that the sellers being leaned on by the NY AG’s office are selling materials that “can only be used” to manufacture an illegal firearm. What the cease-and-desist letter is claiming is that these materials “are intended for” manufacturing illegal firearms.
If that is what they are intended for, and if it’s illegal in NY to sell or purchase them with that intention (neither of which conditions I personally have any certain knowledge about), then I don’t see that the AG’s office is out of line in demanding that they not be sold to New Yorkers.
How does the NY AG know they are intended for illegal firearms manufacture? The cease-and-desist offers no evidence the kit manufacturers intend them for illegal purposes. They did not present any sting operations yielding comments saying “this would be make a great machine gun” or “this is perfect for a hit” or anything like that. Just an assertion. If there were evidence, there would be prosecution, not a letter.
I don’t understand how this can be disputed. I posted an example of an NY-legal AR-15. Here is its product page from a major firearms manufacturer: Ruger NY-legal AR-556, maybe I should have added that too to reinforce that it’s a mainstream product. There is no federal law that makes it illegal to manufacture a firearm for personal use, and no NY law restricting that. I don’t know why you think the Prohibition example is relevant. It was universally illegal to make alcoholic beverages at that time. It is not illegal to make or own an AR-15 in NY. Why do you think 80% lowers are only used for illegal purposes?
Also, it is interesting that the C&D partially quotes the NY assault weapons law regarding how “assault weapon” is defined by things like pistol grips and stocks, but these are not part of a lower receiver. This is an 80% lower: Note the filled in areas in the rear that have to be machined out by the end user. That is what makes it an “80%” lower and not a firearm yet (80% is just a popular descriptor, BTW. The ATF defines the firearm/not firearm threshold by ability to receive a trigger group and hammer, not by counting machining steps). If the alleged illegal product depends on the end user’s choice of accessories not supplied to determine the legality of the final result, doesn’t it weaken claims of intent?
It’s back to the endless matter of gun control and ways to evade restrictions on certain weapons. Ultimately, it boils down to just one question; if you are assembling a weapon, then the weapon should be registered, which means that it must comply with any local laws. Or at least, that is the European point of view, requiring registration and permits. The issue here is that you are creating a gun out of parts, and if I understand correctly, one that can also bypass any restrictions on automatic fire. The other point is that the gun does not have a serial number. Of course, the more skilled can make their own gun out of parts, my understanding is that a simple submachine gun can be cobbled together by anyone with a well equipped workshop, although the magazines are the hard part. You could make such a homebrew weapon anywhere, in the USA or Europe, but in the latter case it would be illegal evan as a collection of parts, let alone when assembled.
Doesn’t really boil down simply to anything, because in virtually all the relevant cases the local laws are against new sale and purchase of the weapons in question. In virtually every case weapons legally bought before the ‘ban’ are still legal. In some cases of state laws now there are requirements to register ‘grandfathered’ semiautomatic ‘assault weapons’, for example in CA, but not in NY.
So if the state (not to mention US federal govt) can’t push through a law which comprehensively bans the weapon itself, but only bans selling/buying them, it’s always going to be a matter of interpretation what constitutes selling one, what exact gun, and whether parts count. If the law were basically different than what it is…the issue would be different.
You mention automatic weapons which are not relevant to the case in question because those are subject US federal laws which require registration and strict licensing that results in relatively very few such weapons legally possessed as compared to the far larger number of semiautomatic rifles covered under the political moniker ‘assault weapons’. It’s just illegal to convert legal semi-automatic weapons into automatic everywhere in the US, and there’s no live* issue of constitutionality there. The federal BATF makes regulations against commercial production and sale of particular semiautomatic weapons the BATF deems too easy to convert to automatic, and that involves some of the same jargon about receivers, trigger groups and so forth, but that’s not the issue in the NY AG action.
*internet ‘constitutional scholars’ can always posit that any gun law ‘should’ be found unconstitutional in the US but as a practical matter the National Firearms Act of 1934 and later automatic weapons laws haven’t been successfully legally challenged over a long period.
Anyway, while all that is nice, and may be the law in Luxemburg, it is NOT the law in New York. That’s the whole point. Under current NY laws, these parts and the guns from them are totally legal. It’s a loophole, sure, and the legislature could close it in a day. They have not seen fit to do so. Thus the AG is making up his own laws.
You can argue it *should *be illegal, but it’s NOT illegal.
Re-quoting, again, the relevant parts of the NY AG’s cease-and-desist letter complaining about
You can argue with the AG’s office all you want about whether the assertions made in the letter are true, and as I have pointed out several times before, IANAL and have no personal knowledge of the legal issues involved. But it seems pretty obvious that if the AG’s office is saying that something is illegal and some other people are saying it isn’t, then its legality is disputed.
But there’s no evidence that sellers are advertising their product intended for the assembly of illegal weapons. The AG could write a similar letter to Amazon telling the to cease providing aid to terrorists by selling them books that facilitates terrorism.
I hope they hash it out in court, and the residents of NY through their tax dollars pay the legal fees of the sellers so they can sell more weapons into the state of NY.
:dubious: Really? You’re arguing that cease-and-desist letters are sent out by an attorney general only when the issue is too legally dubious to justify filing suit? That seems very implausible.
While I personally can’t pronounce on the legal merits of the NY AG’s position (as I believe I’ve mentioned before), I’m not at all persuaded by your attempt to argue that they wouldn’t even have sent a cease-and-desist letter if their position was valid. AFAICT from the letter, the targeted recipients have five days to explain, if they choose, why they think no enforcement action should be taken against them; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that no valid justification for taking enforcement action against them exists.
AFAICT (and again, IANAL), the AG’s letter seems to be cautioning the sellers that they are not taking adequate measures to disclaim such an intention:
You seem to be arguing that since the items in question can also be used to make legal weapons, then they’re obviously not intended for the purpose of making illegal ones. This is the part that’s reminding me a bit of Prohibition-era sellers of grape-juice concentrate being shocked, shocked! at the insinuation that anybody might be using their totally legal product to manufacture any illegal beverage.
That’s not my read. The AG is not cautioning about not taking adequate measures - the letter states even sellers stating that manufacture of an assault weapon is illegal, or any other additional communications prohibiting illegal conduct is not sufficient to overcome the AG’s presumption that the website has the intent to sell illegal weapons.
Here’s an example that is similar. In CA, it is currently illegal to buy, or import into the state any magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds. In NV, there isn’t a limit on the size of magazines individuals can purchase. As neighboring states, this creates an opportunity for unscrupulous people to purchase a legal magazine in NV and bring it across the border into CA. There are even stores like Bass Pro Shops that are in NV, but pretty close to the border. Should stores in NV be prevented from selling magazines to people who go into their stores?
Bass Pro Shops goes even further. They ask for ID before selling the magazines, and if you are a CA resident, they will not sell to you. This isn’t required, but they do it anyways to help customers comply with the law. That is what the NY gun sellers are doing. They are selling a legal product, but they are warning people to only use it in the way it was intended, to comply with the law. But that is not enough for the AG. Apparently even the potential for illegal activity is equivalent to engaging in that illegal activity.
Which sellers are you referring to? AFAIK the NY AG’s office did not disclose the identities of the recipients of the cease-and-desist letters, but is claiming that they are not adequately warning customers to comply with the law:
That’s not what the letter says, kinda. It may say that, but the part you quoted also basically says that no amount of warning is sufficient. You quoted that part:
This means it doesn’t matter how much people are cautioned against engaging in illegal acts, because the presumption is that the very purpose for which those products are intended and designed is illegal. Of course, that’s clearly false and the AG is wrong.
Any seller of an 80% lower is going to be very clear on the legality of the product, and how it may, and may not be used. No seller is going to encourage illegal behavior - it results in massive fines, loss of license, and federal prison. You’re right, there is no specific seller listed. If you could find any seller that encouraged illegal activity, then they should be shut down and prosecuted. 80% lowers are not illegal - they aren’t even firearms.
Hmmm. If so, it sounds as though it would be easy for the companies targeted by the cease-and-desist letter to provide valid reasons why enforcement action against them is not warranted.
I mean, what we’ve got at this point is evidently a matter of opinion where the NY AG’s office is unambiguously claiming that they have valid legal grounds for requiring the unidentified sellers to cease and desist their marketing and selling of these items to NY customers, and you clearly believe that the NY AG’s office is deliberately making unjustified claims to pressure the sellers into desisting from legal activities that they have no valid grounds for prosecuting.
Absent a better-informed legal opinion competently explaining for the lay mind the relevant jurisprudential details (which for all I know may not even exist yet until and unless such a case is actually heard by a NY court), we are now in “Uh-huh/Nuh-uh” territory, where I have no way of determining whether your opinion is more correct than the NY AG’s or vice versa (did I mention that IANAL?).
I suppose they could await their day in court, because there is nothing that requires the AG to be responsive to valid reasons. Even if the targets of these letters are 100% in the clear, this type of action by the AG could be burdensome. This is similar to a SLAAP lawsuit, where the goal is harassment or to get the targeted through burdensome legal expense.
For a target of SLAAP litigation, would you also be sanguine saying that it would be easy for the target to demonstrate their speech is actually protected?
Well, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but IANAL. If somebody asserted definitively that the plaintiff in a SLAAP case was making charges that were legally groundless, then I’d be inclined to think it sounded as though it would be easy for the defendant to provide valid reasons why their speech is actually protected.
Of course, providing valid reasons is not automatically the same thing as winning your case, and of course, an AG’s office cease-and-desist letter is not the same thing as a SLAAP lawsuit. We’re back in the same territory of opinion where you opine that the AG’s office is wrong, and the AG’s office appears to think they’re not wrong, and I have no way of independently determining the legal rights of the matter. On account of not being a lawyer, and all.
It sounds like it’d be easy for the defendant, but it’s not. The evidence is the various states that have passed anti-SLAAP legislation. They did this because it’s actually not easy to provide valid reasons, at least not economically. Could be the same thing here. You have the AG of NY, vs a small manufacturer that could employ like 18 people. I wonder who has more resources to withstand litigation.
I think you’re mixing up “providing valid reasons” with “winning your case because of your valid reasons”, which I explicitly tried to distinguish between.
Clearly there are differences of opinion, and the AG isnt going to write a letter that sez: “It could be that…”- so again I ask, why doesnt the NY Legislature just close the loophole?
It doesn’t make any difference. The goal is to harass and cost these companies money. You seem to be avoiding the merits, avoiding the reasoning, and assuming that the AG has positive intent. That’s fine since it probably fits your thinking on the matter. But if you understand the purpose of a SLAAP lawsuit, it should be pretty clear the potential for abuse here.
