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Witless for the Prosecution: New York DA Forces Staff to Forgo Second Amendment Rights
Friday, September 25, 2015
Madeline Singas, Acting District Attorney for
Nassau County, New York, is a hypocrite. Worse, she is willing to gamble
with the lives and safety of her staff and their families for her own
perceived political benefit. While claiming “a commitment to justice, compassion, and integrity”
and boasting about keeping “more vulnerable people safe,” she enforces a
policy of mandatory disarmament amongst the attorneys who put their own
safety on the line to administer justice in her jurisdiction. On
Monday, Prof. Eugene Volokh broke the story that the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office bars prosecutors from having handguns, even at home.
Prosecutors, considered the top law enforcement officials
of their jurisdictions, take an oath to defend and uphold the
Constitution of the United States of America. They are invested with
great public trust, making decisions that profoundly affect the life,
liberty, and property of the residents of their jurisdictions, decisions
that can increase or decrease the public’s respect for the justice
system and the rule of law. The system can only work if they take that
oath seriously.
Prosecutors also face a unique career hazard in taking
public roles in seeing justice meted out to often very dangerous people.
Some of those people will hold grudges and will look to settle scores.
An article at FoxNews.com recounts the murders of 14 prosecutors and underscores the risks of those “who confront evil for a living.”
Thanks to Singas’ policy, Nassau County prosecutors will
be finding themselves especiallyexposed, should they be forced to
confront an aggrieved offender bent on doing them or their innocent
family members harm. The policy will also ensure that armed offenders
have the upper hand in any such confrontation.
That’s a lot to ask of anybody for $52,000 a year, the
salary of an entry level prosecutor in Ringas’s office in 2014. For
anybody who has tried to earn a living in the New York City Metropolitan
Area, that’s not a lot of money. Clearly, the policy is aimed at
impressionable young attorneys eager to begin their professional careers
and to make a name for themselves. “Vulnerable” indeed.
According to Prof. Volokh, Ringas’s Office justified the
policy as follows: “Our practice of asking prosecutors to not possess
handguns is to ensure the safety and comfort of staff, victims, and
witnesses, and is consistent with other district attorney’s offices in
the New York City metropolitan area.”
This is a bizarre and insufficient explanation for several
reasons. First, they’re not simply “asking” their employees to follow a
suggested practice. A document linked to in Prof. Volokh’s story
clearly indicates the handgun ban is a mandatory condition of
employment. Titled “Assistant District Attorney Application Information
& Instruction Form,” it requires the applicant to acknowledge: “I
understand that assistant district attorneys are not permitted to apply
for a handgun permit nor own or possess a handgun while employed by the
Nassau County District Attorney.”
Second, how could the ban possibly contribute to the
“safety and comfort” of anybody, except criminals who would seek to
victimize prosecutors? Prosecutors are presumably hired for their legal
acumen, good judgment, and fidelity to the law. Most are subject to
thorough background investigations. Yet as Prof. Volokh aptly observes,
“As best I can tell, the theory is that the DA’s office is worried that
prosecutors will come in to the office in a rage and shoot up the place.
What kinds of people is the DA’s office hiring?”
Third, the policy only applies to handguns. Apparently,
whatever “safety and comfort” issues are presented by employees’ handgun
possession are not presented by their possession of long guns. Of
course, anybody who’s read the Supreme Court’s Heller decision would
know that a handgun ban is not saved by the theoretical availability of
other types of firearms. “It is no answer to say,” the court wrote,
“that it is permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the
possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed.”
Fourth, the evidence in criminal trials will more than
occasionally include handguns. Taken at face value, the ban would
preclude prosecutors from handling the evidence in their own cases. Even
if the policy has an unwritten evidentiary exception, how does it
increase safety or credibility for prosecutors to be forbidden from
handling handguns in their personal capacity, when their jobs may
require them to do so in a room full of people during highly charged
court proceedings? Is Singas suggesting that the only safe place for a
prosecutor to handle a gun is in a courtroom?
Fifth, New York is already a virtual gun controller’s
Utopia, particularly with respect to handguns. It has the dubious
distinction of an “A-“ rating from both the antigun Law Center to
Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign. Brady itself rates it as
among the five U.S. states with the strictest gun control. It has
handgun licensing (including mandatory background checks) and
registration. The licensing process can result in a de facto waiting
period of six months. Licenses in Nassau County are also subject to
summary cancellation. Magazines are limited to a capacity of 10 rounds.
State officials are authorized to impose design standards for handguns.
Concealed carry permits are issued on a discretionary basis. Private
sales of all guns are banned. And the list continues. Given this, it’s
clear that the policy can only be based on a belief that handguns cannot
be “safely” and “comfortably” possessed by anyone under any
circumstances.
Presumably, Acting District Attorney Ringas knows that the
Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms
and that the U.S. Supreme Court has held it specifically applies to
handguns. She also must realize that her office’s purported
justifications are farcical to any thinking person. The irony of denying
those who are supposed to serve the ends of justice of their most basic
rights needs no further elaboration. It also goes without saying that
if she tried to impose similar restraints with regard to other basic
rights – for example, denying employment based on perceived “comfort”
issues with a person’s religion or lack of religion – she would be
facing civil rights litigation herself.
The only plausible explanation is that the policy serves
as a litmus test to allow Ringas to purge her office of social or
political views that she finds objectionable and to advance her own
perceived political standing. One can only imagine, however, the
negative fallout if one of her employees were to suffer victimization
that could have been prevented with the proper tools of self-defense.
That anybody who regularly deals with the criminal element would subject
others to that risk not only shows bad judgment, it shows a disregard
for the rights and safety of others that should disqualify a person from
any public employment, much less in a law enforcement field.
Volokh notes, with professorial understatement, that the
Nassau County District Attorney’s Office provides a “pretty good example
of just how anti-gun some government organizations are.” It also
provides a pretty good example of what America could look like if
Hillary Clinton or another anti-gun zealot were overseeing the U.S.
Justice Department and appointing Supreme Court justices. We have said
it before and we will say it again. Choose wisely, America. Choose
wisely.
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