Pompey Rod & Gun Club 2035 Swift Road, PO Box 36, Pompey, NY 13138
This is the official website of the PRGC effective 8/14/18
We would like to say goodbye to Ed Baker, a long time member of our club. Our condolences go out to his family.
Edward C. Baker June 25, 2022 Edward C. Baker “Pop,” 75, of Eaton, passed away on Saturday, June 25, 2022, at his home. Interment will be private at the convenience of the family. To send a condolence online or to read the full obituary, go to www.burgessandtedescofuneralhomes.com.
A member of our club asked us if we would post the following:
Senate bill S9456 banned muzzleloaders
6/15/22 – I’ve been a club member for several years now. I had a meeting today with my Senator’s Chief of Staff to discuss S9456, which (likely on accident) banned muzzleloaders and other things. Below is a sort of recounting of the legal basis for that and a summary of the meeting. I’m trying to spread the word, because I don’t think the law’s impact on muzzleloaders is widely known (because it was likely accidental). Please excuse the format, it’s written that way because I intend to post it to social media at a later time.
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I met with my NYS senator’s Chief of Staff to discuss S9456, which expands the definition of “firearm” to include any item which “expels a projectile by action of an explosive”. My senator is a democrat, and I was invited to a meeting after filling out an online message at nysenate.gov. My goal for the meeting was to demonstrate that S9456, in addition to banning “others”, banned muzzleloaders, potato guns, can launchers, ramsets, and many other items. I’ll outline my basic premise below and then address the meeting itself.
In NY, “firearm” does not refer to all types of gun generally, but instead a specific group of prohibited weapons defined in § 265.00. Rifles, shotguns, and unloaded muzzleloading pistols/revolvers are exempt from classification as “firearms”. Pistols are classified as “firearms”, but per NY § 400.00 are allowed if registered on the owners permit. All other items in this category have no legal path to ownership.
A muzzleloader is not a rifle because it does not use a “fixed metallic cartridge”, a defining feature of rifles per NY § 265.00. Muzzleloaders do however, “expel a projectile by action of an explosive”.
Now that the definition of “firearm” has been expanded, muzzleloaders are firearms and there is no legal path to own them in NY. Previously owned guns are not grandfathered in and unlike pistols (which are also “firearms”) there is no path to legal ownership through permit and registration.
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With that established, I’ll discuss the meeting. In the meeting the Chief of Staff agreed that muzzleloaders, potato guns, can launchers, and ramsets fall under the expanded “firearm” definition. However, they believed that the expansion of the definition did not ban their possession, but simply enabled law enforcement to charge individuals already committing a crime with “criminal possession”.
That is incorrect. Per NY § 265.01 “A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree when: (1) He or she possesses any firearm…”. This is also mentioned in § 265.01-b. These muzzleloaders, novelty items, and construction tools now also need to be serialized per § 265.07 and cannot be possessed with intent to sell per § 265.11-§ 265.14. I encourage you to look over § 265 as there are other relevant sections which criminalize owning multiple “firearms” etc.
And at the end of the meeting, I was told that I was the only one to come to them mentioning this problem. Please speak to your representatives. They need to hear this from as many people as possible. Be prepared and polite. This will not be my last discussion with them on this topic.
TLDR: They agreed that muzzleloaders etc are now firearms and were verifiably wrong in their belief that it was still possible to legally possess one. I WAS THE ONLY PERSON TO BRING THIS TO THEIR ATTENTION, CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.
Pompey Rod & Gun Club 