Great day for our constitution.
Great day for the New Yorkers. Born the and lived there in Western New York State, one a child growing up was firmly indoctrinated that it was forbidden to even own a handgun without a permit for it.
The two kinds that I recall were (1) a premises permit, only for a particular pistol and for its serial number only, that had to be kept in your home or in your business approved for it alone.
To get the second kind to carry a handgun outside the home, and only that one for which the serial number was listed on your permit, you had to give the judge granting the permit an exact reason for it that convinced him/her.
Hardly anyone I knew had such a permit, one that could be rescinded and the firearm confiscated at any time. And if you did have either kind of permit, you did not thlk about it at all.
On the other hand, from the age of about 14 on up, one could go into any store that sold guns and ammunition and buy, and carry away, any long gun without hindrance, especially in smaller villages in which a teenager possessing a rifle or shotgun was not uncommon at all, and that so much so that it wasn't worth discussing.
That has changed. The overwhelming influence of gun-ignorant city people has recently initiated a surplus of legal restrictions that required even the hunter or farmer to undergo background check to buy even a long gun, and that above a certain age, I believe; certainly not for any resident of another state presenting him/her sewlf at the point of sale.
Going back and investigating the laws in effect during and prior to the 1950s might show some inconsistencies in what I said above, but not much. I believe that the strictures of law were passed in the days of the prohibition when the gang wars predominant in the large cities were spilling over somewhat into the suburban and rural counties.
All in all, the lack of separation of the five boroughs of New York City as a separate political entity, a separate state, has condemned the rest of the usually morally and geographically superior portions of the state to live under rules fit only for those criminally-inclined residential areas included within the City's borders.
We find Illinois and California residents of the siburban and rural geographical areas suffering likewise.
But born and raised as a New Yorker, considering that as my home, I rejoice in the reassertion of Constitutional rights that presided prior to the Prohibition/Jazz Age when these restrictions were unlawfully instituted but not effectively rejected on the basis of the principle involved rather than by the whimsical illogic of a predominance of Constitutionally-ignorant liberal legislators.