Posted on 09/16/2022 4:42:54 PM PDT by lowbridge
A slew of historical reenactments in New York have been canceled — because participants are concerned their muskets could run afoul of a new state gun law.
The law, which took effect Sept. 1, prohibits carrying weapons in “sensitive locations” such as public parks, museums, and sports fields, leaving history buffs concerned their black-powder muskets could get them arrested, the Observer-Dispatch reported.
“All it would take is a citizen complaint and the whole thing will become a mess,” said Terry Parker, who decided to cancel a Civil War reenactment event he planned for late September in Allegany County in the wake of the new law.
“We didn’t really want to be the test case and get my friends arrested,” Parker, who started the event 18 years ago and leads the organizing committee, told the outlet.
In addition, the Living History Weekend scheduled for last week in central New York, which was to also include a Civil War reenactment, was squashed after the local sheriff’s office found the event could violate the new law, the outlet reported.
“Our attorneys advised us that there is no exemption in the law for Civil War reenactments,” Herkimer County Sheriff Scott Scherrer told the outlet.
“It would be illegal, according to the letter of the governor’s law.”
But Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said in a statement to The Post on Friday, “These laws allow historical re-enactments to occur, and there should be no concern otherwise.
“We will work with legislators and local law enforcement to ensure these events can proceed as they have for centuries. In the meantime, individuals who have lawfully participated in reenactments should continue to do so.”
But Rochester lawyer Sheldon Boyce Jr., who specializes in Second Amendment law, said there’s no carveout for historical events in the law’s language.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Bkmk
But I thought liberals loved muskets.
They always refer to them and say we can have them. Just another lie from the left.
Liberals aren’t embarrassed or shamed. Those are two of the characteristics of liberals.
“...The American Revolution centennial in 1876 was in the 19th century, so you could argue that was two centuries ago even though it was 146 years ago...” [ProtectOurFreedom, post 15]
“...Couldn’t experience the sound, the smell, the terrain in a museum...” [mewzilla, post 18]
“Maybe the Civil War re-enactors could carry walkie talkies instead of guns so that nobody is triggered...” [Sirius Lee, post 22]
All of your comments have been pointedly thoughtful, and more succinct than any words I’ve come up with.
The anti-gun and anti-military antics directed at reenacting have been going on for a while.
In autumn 1984 or 1985, my AWI regiment was invited to march in a Christmas parade, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our commander accepted the invitation. The organizers then told us we would not be allowed to carry our muskets, nor bring along any weapons - something about honoring the “season of peace.” All the usual verbiage followed: peace on Earth, goodwill toward men, etc. Our commander withdrew our acceptance.
For many years, our outfit had marched in an event in Omaha, celebrating the travels of Lewis and Clark through the region. Then one year, the organizers told us we could march, but that we couldn’t bring any “guns” with us. Excuse-mongering included flummery about local laws prohibiting open carry of firearms inside the city limits, spirit of peace and brotherhood, etc. We gave up attending.
In the mid 1990s, organizers of Offutt AFB’s public events told us we would no longer be allowed to perform at the annual open house (our regiment was headquartered in Bellevue, Nebraska). Before our commander could issue a formal statement of any sort, we received a message from the airbase wing commander’s office, telling us we could bring all the weaponry we owned, and we’d be permitted to put on our firepower demo, as we’d done at every open house since our regiment’s founding back in 1975. The entire pre-event dustup came as a surprise, as our regiment - the only unit west of the Mississippi, chartered by the US Bicentennial Commission, the outfit that presented the colors at the kickoff of Offutt’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976 - had long enjoyed close relations with the base. Just who negated our standing invitation, and who forced the re-issuance, we never did find out.
Museums have been suffering similar instances of disapproval. They’ve been afflicted by academic Leftists pushing victimology and invidious revisionism for some time too.
When it was announced in 1994 that B-29-45-MO serial 44-86292 (better known to the public as the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in action) would be almost fully restored for display inside Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at the 50th anniversary of victory in World War Two, the Air Force Association managed to get hold of a draft of the exhibit script. The average American who read the text would have come away convinced that the United States was immensely unfair and racist, to start its war against Imperial Japan with a sneak attack, dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
AFA, other veterans groups, and armed-services support organizations joined forces to get the exhibit text rewritten into something closer to the truth; Martin O Harwit, then Director of the Air & Space Museum, was forced to resign the following year.
I became involved with the planners and organizers of Offutt’s 1995 celebrations of WW2 victory. And just about all of us kept working after that, to plan & stage the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Strategic Air Command, scheduled for March 1996. At one point in the preparations, I was told in person by Richard P Hallion, USAF’s Chief Historian, that he had resigned from his position as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, because most of the rest of the staff had become devoted Leftists. His work had often been interfered with.
I am far removed from this being in Texas. But I read the same story on Yahoo of all places some days ago. Seems that for some small towns in Upstate New York the Revolutionary War reenactments contributes a significant part of their sales tax, hotel and tourist dollars.
Probably Fort Saratoga.
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Those are very sad tales. It is astonishing how much power leftists have garnered.
I remember family outings to military parades from about 1955 to 1960 when I age 4 to 9 in Utica, NY. We sat on Dad’s old wool, olive drab Marine Corps blanket. The streets were filled with WW II military equipment and veterans. That would really get the leftists you write about wetting their panties.
I can’t believe they get that worked up over RE-ENACTMENT arms. Why, exactly, do they think we even HAVE peace at Christmas time? Pax Americana is a short lived blessing and it won’t last forever. It is achieved through superior militaries and armaments.
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