Actually it was passed in 1911 after a failed assassination attempt on the city's mayor. IIRC Sullivan was a police commissioner who drew up the law and got it passed.
According to an article I read a few years ago in a gun magazine, the real reason Sullivan got the law passed was that he was paid off to get it done by a group of Irish dockworkers whose jobs were being taken by recent immigrants from southern Europe who would work for less pay. It seems the Irish dockworkers were beating and often killing the immigrant workers to intimidate them, hoping it would scare them away from working the docks. And their Irish cop friends in the area were ignoring the violence and actually doing some of it themselves.
After a while the Italian workers got tired of the abuse and bought guns to fight back. After several Irish thugs were shot and killed, the Irish workers and their Irish cop pals demanded that Sullivan get a law passed to disarm the immigrants. When the attempt to assassinate the mayor with a revolver was given wide publicity, Sullivan had the excuse he needed to get his namesake law passed.
I don't remember what gun rag that story came from, and I'm not certain that all of it is true. But having some knowledge of the corruption that was so prevalent in NYC government at that time (when was it not?), and the blatant favoritism that Irish NYC officials and cops gave to their Irish friends and families in that era, I tend to believe that most of it is true.
Note: I'm 1/2 Irish myself, so don't accuse me of Celt-bashing.
Hey, thanks for the great info ....didn't realize that's how it came about.
Not to worry re: being Celtic ... I have a problem being a Christian Jew .....
Regards,
Jane
You got that about right. Here is a good synopsis of the whole sordid affair, from Gun Law News.
I found this from a NY Slimes editorial of the time (before the law) particularly interesting. The Old Gray Bitch hasn't changed much since, at least as far as the RKBA is concerned. However they have become more PC and don't usually openly show their contempt for the little people.
January 27, 1905 New York Times Editorial - [The proposed gun control] measure would prove corrective and salutary in a city filled with immigrants and evil communications, floating from the shores of Italy and Austria-Hungary. New York police reports frequently testify to the fact that the Italian and other south Continental gentry here are acquainted with the pocket pistol, and while drunk or merrymaking will use it quite as handily as the stiletto, and with more deadly effect. It is hoped that this treacherous and distinctly outlandish mode of settling disputes may not spread to corrupt the native good manners of the community.
In September 1913 Sullivan disappeared after an all night card game with his guards. A few days later his body was found on the railroad tracks near the Westchester freight yards. An engineer stated that Sullivan was dead before the train ran over his body.
http://politicalgraveyard.com/death/railroad.html>
Struck and killed by a locomotive, near Pelham Parkway, Bronx, Bronx County, N.Y., August 31, 1913