NY Bill Would Require Surrendering Social Media History before Gun Purchases

By ngnadmin On Jan 28, 2019 0

A bill proposed in the New York State Senate would mandate reviewing the social media accounts and internet search history of people seeking a pistol permit or renewing their license.

State Senator Kevin Parker of New York’s 21st District says he introduced Senate Bill 9191 hoping to keep firearms out the hands of people who may be violent. The measure reads in part:

Social media and search engine reviews prior to the approval of an application or renewal of a license to carry or possess a pistol or revolver; requires a person applying for a license to carry or possess a pistol or a revolver or a renewal of such license to consent to having his or her social media accounts and search engine history reviewed and investigated for certain posts and/or searches over 1-3 years prior to the approval of such application or renewal; defines terms.

If passed, the bill would require anyone applying for a new gun license or renewing an existing one to surrender their log-ins and passwords to all social media accounts for the state to do open searches over the previous three years. Internet search history for one year is included in the bill.

National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke warns Americans: “If New York passes this measure, it will essentially have nullified the Second Amendment within its borders.”

In different times, such a bill would have been seen as blatantly unconstitutional and never made it out of committee. Especially since it not only conflicts with the Second Amendment but the First.

13wham.com reports that the bill would also allow denial of a gun permit because of what is considered inflammatory language. Using the law, state investigators would look for “known profane slurs used or biased language used to describe race, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation; threatening health or safety of another person, or an act of terrorism.”

Several noted conservative journalists note the troubling nature of such a bill. This bill not only allows for searching if a person has made a credible threat but if they have used what the state considers “biased language.”

Cook cautions a state investigator who subscribes to social-justice warrior logic might view a post in a coed chat group that opens with “Hey, you guys” as sexist, thus flagging denial of a gun permit.

As Cook says, the Second Amendment does not say citizens have a right to a gun unless they’re jerks. It doesn’t say “you must use correct gender terminology before you are allowed to bear arms.

The Bill of Rights does not create rights, it protects them! Progressives now see it as a weapon (no pun intended) to deny rights our founders believed to be natural. Cook writes that as long as jerks are non-violent, there is no “logical reason to deny them” what the Second Amendment seeks to protect.

Some SJW arguments may annoy but they are not fundamentally dangerous. Last year, two British university researchers announced their research showed open offices to be sexist. Their conclusion was that women are at a disadvantage working in offices where “men in particular, often in groups, look obsessively at women.”

The year before that a group of Latino students painted “White Girl, take off your hoops!” on a dormitory wall devoted to free speech. According to them, “white women should not wear hoop earrings because the style belongs only to women of color.”

Illinois State University now offers a “bystander training program on micro-aggressions.” The purpose of the program aims for people to “be aware of micro-aggressions and be prepared to intervene.”

The University of California–Davis, the University of North and Macalester College, among others, have banned the use of the term “you guys” because it “generalizes all people as men which is offensive to women”.

NY Senate Bill 9191 would apply the same arbitrary rules to gun ownership. Expelling a student for saying “you guys” is stupid. Denying that same student the right to own a weapon is fundamentally anti-Constitution.

Assemblywoman-elect Jamie Romeo said: “While I respect [Parker’s] proposal [it has] a lot of enforcement problems.” She sees the proposal as a means to push the governor’s “Red Flag” gun protection bill that allows a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who might present a danger to others.

As always, no gun law is an end in itself.