Part of the New York SAFE Act Shot Down

Here’s some good news to start off 2014. A federal judge has shot down the seven round restriction of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act, although he upheld the ban on aesthetically offensive semi-automatic rifles:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – A federal judge has rejected a controversial portion of New York’s tough new gun law while upholding the majority of the SAFE Act.

Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny in Buffalo rejected restrictions of no more than seven bullets in a magazine, but upheld the ban on in-state sales of assault weapons and high capacity magazines.

In his ruling, Skretny found the seven-round limit “tenuous, strained and unsupported” but found that the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines “do not impermissibly infringe on Plaintiff’s Second Amendment rights” and furthers the state’s “important interest in public safety.”

I am left to wonder if the judge would have found a 10 round limit acceptable on the same grounds he claimed the restriction of aesthetically offensive semi-automatic rifles was acceptable. Perhaps the mistake New York’s lawmakers made only a measure of three rounds.

As with most rulings related to firearm laws, this one was arbitrarily made. Somehow Second Amendment privileges (because we don’t have rights in this country) are infringed by a seven round magazine but not by a ban on rifles based entirely on aesthetic features. How a rifle with a pistol grip and bayonet lug is more dangerous to public safety than a rifle with a traditional stock and a bayonet lug is beyond me.