Oops! New York State Police Admit to Major Mistake in Gun Confiscation Case

The Blaze ^ | Apr. 11, 2013 10:22am | Mike Opelka

[Red Steel]

In a surprising turnaround, New York State Police have admitted that they made a mistake when they confiscated the guns and suspended the permit of an Erie County resident on the grounds of mental health.

Late Wednesday, Erie County, NY, released a statement (posted below) blaming the New York State Police for giving them bad information regarding the suspension of a pistol permit and demand to surrender firearms sent to Amherst resident David Lewis.

(Mr. Lewis was not identified in our original story, his name has since been released in conjunction with court documents filed by his attorney, Jim Tresmond.)

“Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs said that late today he received a call from the New York State Police informing him that they had provided information on the wrong person when they notified his office of someone whose permit should be suspended because of the new mental health provisions in New York’s SAFE Act,” the release begins.

“When the State Police called to tell us they made a mistake and had the wrong person … it become clear that the state did not do their job here and now we all look foolish,” the release went on to say in a quote from Clerk Jacobs.

Jacobs appeared on WBEN radio in Buffalo on Thursday morning and explained the details of this administrative debacle. Mr. Jacobs also delivered some pointed comments about how the law was written so badly that mistakes like this were bound to happen. He closed with some fairly damning statements and also asked the state to consider scrapping the bill and re-writing it.

“When you write a piece of legislation in a vacuum, without having hearings, without talking to people about how it’s going to implemented in the real world — without jeopardizing people’s rights, and putting an individual like this through a nightmarish experience, and infringe on their rights, you have to go back to the drawing board,” he said. “And I encourage the legislative leadership here and mostly our governor to take a step back and say ‘we didn’t get it right’ and let’s change this.”

Read WBEN’s full story on Jacobs here.

After the press release was issued by the state, TheBlaze spoke with one of Mr. Lewis’ attorney, Max Tresmond.

“We won round one,” he said, “round two will be a suit against the state for what they did to our client and his reputation.”

Here is the press release admitting to the error in this gun confiscation:

[Oatka]

And in other news Feds requested — and got — names of all conceal-carry owners in Missouri

[snip] Have a conceal-carry license in Missouri? Chances are, the feds now know who you are. At least 185,000 people were affected after the full list of conceal-carry owners was turned over the federal authorities — twice.

“Apparently from what I understand, they wanted to match up anyone who had a mental diagnosis or disability with also having a concealed carry license,” the Columbia Daily Tribune reports Republican state Sen. Kurt Schaefer as saying. “What I am told is there is no written request for that information.”

[Robert357]

I have a much different perspective.

I want to applaud the actions of the clerk!

Clerk Jacobs has established a solid set of evidence and testimony that will make the litigation against the State very hard for them to support.

I think that by pointing to the Governor and the Legislature on a radio program he has provided those who didn't want to see a closed door piece of legislation rammed through the State's legislative body by the governor with lots of political ambition.

As such I would wager that the Clerk Jacobs is not on a variety of Democratic party shit-lists.

I think he likely has done all the people of NY a favor and that he has potentially attempted to save the bacon of his County from litigation and further embarrassment.

It will be interesting if other false 2nd amendment affronts keep happening.

[cyn]

Thanks for the link.

http://www.guncite.com/onething.html

[Cyber Liberty]

When I first read of this a couple days ago, the story said there were four groups of people specifically empowered to release information (violate HIPAA) about psychiatric care to the authorities: Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Registered Nurses and Social Workers. I suspected immediately the RN in the office of the Doc who prescribed the antidepressant a year previous. Nothing reported has changed my humble opinion on the matter. The busybody RN did it.

Lewis’ lawyer understands the nub of the problem here, and that’s the violation of HIPAA outlined in the law. I do have a bit of a problem with the attorney advising his client to turn over the weapons while the court battle was going on. I would have found another way to get them out of the equation.

Somebody *is* going to get the carp sued out of them. Let’s see who.

[Ken H]

Impossible! Haven't you all seen those surveys where police all say they support the Second Amendment?

Actions speak louder than words.

[cyn]

nurse... interesting. As is the list of empowered releasers. Iow HIPAA is obviously worthless.

Pah on the bunch of them.

[TigersEye]

...someone whose permit should be suspended because of the new mental health provisions in New York’s SAFE Act,”...

Apparently this provision supersedes due process and it's not necessary to have a court adjudicate someone mentally incompetent in order to take their guns. The Toomey-Manchin compromise does pretty much the same thing.

[VeniVidiVici]

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.]

--- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942.

Our Forefathers knew what the hell they were doing by making sure the Right to Bear Arms was enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

[dfwgator]

Which explains why Hitler never allowed Poles to be guards at the death camps....Give a Pole a rifle and he’ll shoot the German right away.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

And again...(I just sent it to everyone in my email address book, too)

“This year will go down in history for the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future.”

Adolph Hitler (1935 Weapons Act of Nazi Germany)

[Cyber Liberty]

According to a link upthread, you just sent a lie to your address book.

[Upstate NY Guy]

Exactly right.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Thanks for the heads up.

[Cyber Liberty]

Eh. It happens. Details. It’s still the truth that Hitler went for the guns first. The gun-grabbers want to return us to Nazi Germany.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“The gun-grabbers want to return us to Nazi Germany.”

Before it’s over, Nazi Germany might seem like Mecca.

[VerySadAmerican]

So, the clerk is saying he gave the right name to the state police but the state police got the name wrong. First of all, why is the clerk calling the state police? Second, why does the clerk know anyone’s mental health treatment? Third, did the state police ever go see the other guy?

[Altariel]

Wait. That wasn’t a quote from The Teleprompter?

[MacMattico]

It used to be in NY state more then one person could be registered on a pistol permit. In the 1980’s my father and brother registered my dads handguns in both of their names. When my father died, my mother, obviously in mourning, receives a phone call to hand over the guns. A few antiques and the .22 I learned to shoot on. My mother started to cry, my father had just died a few days earlier. My brother took his paperwork and had it out with the county clerk. The idiot clerk said “We don't allow that anymore.” Well to bad it was allowed in the 80’s. My brother got to keep the guns, but they'll be taken if anything happens to him. This is also proof once you have a background check, you're in the registry, and even if not until your dead, they're coming for your guns.

[Smokin' Joe]

“Apparently from what I understand, they wanted to match up anyone who had a mental diagnosis or disability with also having a concealed carry license,” the Columbia Daily Tribune reports Republican state Sen. Kurt Schaefer as saying. “What I am told is there is no written request for that information.”

It would take 185,000 HIPAA violations to do that.