New York takes guns from the wrong guy
This college librarian by the name of David Lewis in Buffalo, New York got a letter from the Erie County clerk that the pistol permit he had was revoked and that he needed to turn it and his gun over the county, according to The Inquisitor;
According to Lewis’ lawyer, who is now suing the state of New York, his client never made any threats and has no criminal record. Apparently the man was taking anti-anxiety medicine for a short period of time but there is no evidence of any mental instability. Moreover, the odd thing is that his doctor never reported him to the state — and evidently no one else did either.
The state police and Erie County officials are now engaged in finger-pointing as to who is to blame for this bureaucratic foul-up under the new gun control law. The citizen’s health privacy rights under the HIPPA law may also have been violated by unauthorized access to his medical records.
Of course, the excuse that bureaucrats are making are that the SAFE Act, New York’s new gun law that was crammed down the throats of New Yorkers in a big rush to be the first in the nation to look like they’re doing something is flawed. Well, duh! Nothing that gets done quickly is done right – especially by government. That’s why they’re called gun grabbers and not polite young gentlemen working for the good of the people.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
no one will be held accountable for this crap.
i’ll bet he still loses his permit
He’s a gun owner. He lives in New York.
Of COURSE he’s the right guy.
/sarc off
I’m going to work under the assumption that the only people who are exempt from this law are thugs, gangbangers, drug runners, etc. since they wont comply with the law and authorities obviously won’t enforce the law with those groups of people because that requires risk, effort, the possibility of having to get from their la-z-boy, etc. My plan is to simply not comply with the law if it ever comes to that. Who’s going to make me?
OK. If no one reported him to the state of New York, then how did the state of New York get information that he had taken anxiety medication?
Ain’t no deed done without the doer.
Maybe this was the result of the $500 offer by the state to have some people turn in people and their guns? Or, the short version of the plan, Narc your Neighbor.
It’ll be interesting to see if the guys’ attorney can force the state to say why they thought they had a right to revoke his permit and take his gun.
I hope it costs the state a few million $$.
So much for the meme about them NEVER coming after anyone’s guns!
Oh, wait. That was the feds who were NEVER going to come after anyone’s guns. Having delegated that task to the states, maybe the meme is technically still correct?
The stupid just keeps expanding. Accountability? Well, if someone had accidently notified a parent that their 15 yr old had gotten an abortion – we would likely see heads roll.
This kind of thing? Not so much.
Sad to say that I think this is just the beginning of the bureaucratic screw ups that resulting from bad laws. The folks in New York need to get a handle on their elected officials though I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. On another note, that Megyn Kelly is sure easy on the eyes.
If something like this costs the state of New Yokels a lot of money and bad PR, especially for the governor who signed the law “without reading it” — big mistake admitting to that — it will result in the law being revoked.
I’m breathlessly waiting to find out who made the ‘clerical error’.
@4 Does the law allow for subpoena of pharmacy records?
Come on guys.. clearly the state is right… they got the wrong guy… they got someone who knows his rights, and had the thought to go to a lawyer and the media… clearly it was the wrong guy, they meant to get the guy with no money and sense, who would just turn his weapons in and drop the issue.
I am dying to know how the State of New York accessed private medical records. It doesn’t matter who they accessed it from, in this instance HIPA was violated and even if he was on an anti anxiety medication that alone would not preclude him or anyone else from having a gun license.
I see nothing wrong with Doctors reporting individuals like the shooter in Colorado for instance, who make real threats, and are real dangers to themselves and others.
I think we can all agree that if someone makes threats and is suffering from a mental illness that leads the Doctor to feel their patient is at risk of committing a crime…. by all means they should be reported.
This case here though, simple anxiety and prescription of anti anxiety meds would not equate a real threat. Someone fucked up royally.
A HIPAA violation?!?
That’s a maximum $50K penalty!
Pay up grabbers!
Remind me how this country used to be know as “land of the free and home of the brave”…anyone…please.
Sue them all into oblivion. Then make the rubble bounce.
68W58: it appears that criminal penalties are also possibly in play for any “covered entities” that “knowingly” violate HIPAA regulations. 42 USC 1320 does have criminal provisions, and DOJ’s General Council has ruled they are sometimes appropriate.
http://www.justice.gov/olc/hipaa_final.htm
I would personally love to see both whoever provided the HIPAA-protected medical information in question without first being served with a warrant or court order AND anyone in the LE community who obtained it as part of a “fishing expedition” fired, prosecuted, convicted, and do time under this statue.
In Calif they’ve been registering guns for years when you legally purchase them from a dealer…so the CA DOJ has nothing better to do- now they are cross checking records of persons with new felony convictions and have a gun registered to them—then going to the felons home and asking to search it. (why are they asking? because no judge would give them a warrant).
Hondo, wouldn’t that have to go through the U.S. Attorney for the district that includes this part of New York? Good luck with that, it might happen about the time that the dead stop voting in Chicago.
After all, this guy wasn’t running a gun to a drug cartel, it was just his own weapon.
I hope New York State has deep pockets, ’cause they’re going to get the piss sued out of them as such cases keep happening.
See, the way everyone is pointing fingers and not saying anything, I’m thinking some doctor’s office manager (current or former) decided that he/she’d make some extra money and started calling the NY State Police gun rat line and blowing in anyone who had ever had brain medicine prescribed from that office. The lawyer said that he had several other clients who were victims of the same thing.
Lilyea, you’re using far too much common sense with that idea.
Conspiracy theories have so much more… well, zip to them.
Now, if all those people went to the same doctor… or someone using the same phone made those calls, easy enough to trace by going to incoming phone call records…
Sparky, land of the free and home of the brave is still there, just buried under the detritus of bad laws.