Originally published April 9 2013
Cuomo turns neighbors into spies for the state: $500 reward for turning in gun owners
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) In the former Soviet Union, so-called "political officers" spread throughout the country's civilian and military communities were used to "monitor" (read spy) on the population at large, looking for any critics of or detractors from the party line. Violators were punished harshly, and usually with long sentences to labor camps (prison) so they could be rehabilitated.
That was the nature of the Soviet state - strict authoritarianism - where the power of government is actively employed not as a protector of the people but as an enemy.
Politics in the state of New York are being increasingly dominated by would-be tyrants and authoritarians. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to impose his vision of how society ought to be by attempting to ban large, sugary drinks, table salt, fatty foods, and, perhaps eventually, anyone who is taller than he is (because tyrants like to look down on the "little people").
New York - A statist kind of mind
This same mentality dominates on a statewide level too, having been manifested in Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Clinton administration HUD secretary and New York state attorney general. For him, his passion is banning guns, and he is willing to employ Soviet-style political tactics in order to impose his will on the people he was elected to serve.
In a move that clearly demonstrates how much planning has gone into Cuomo's anti-gun crusade, almost a year before he signed the nation's most stringent gun control legislation in January, his administration launched a new telephone hotline which allows state residents to report illegal gun owners in exchange for a $500 "reward" - money that is funded in part by taxpayers who, before the new gun ban took effect, were lawful gun owners.
According to CBS6Albany.com, the hotline was supposedly one of the governor's four-pronged approaches to "reducing gun violence in urban communities."
In a bid to turn ordinary citizens into wards of the nanny state, state residents are encouraged to call the "Gun Tip Line" if they merely believe that a neighbor or someone they know has an illegal gun. The tip line is answered by state police who then refer the tips to local authorities for follow-up investigation, the TV station reported.
"This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward," Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, a Republican, told the station.
So far, anyway, the only good thing about this is that the tip line has not had much use; three police departments contacted by CBS6Albany.com for comment said they had not yet received any tips; two of them did not know of the program.
We can't make this stuff up
Included in the law signed by Cuomo was a ban of more than seven bullets in a pistol or rifle magazine - a provision that unwittingly swept up police officers as the governor and his statist allies in the legislature rushed willy-nilly to pass their "sweeping" bill. Now, Cuomo is promising new dialogue on banning the sale of 10-round magazines (no one has yet been able to explain how Cuomo & Co. came up with a limit of seven rounds) because such a strict limit conflicts with industry-standard 10-round magazines.
"There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn't exist, so you really have no practical option," Cuomo told reporters, once more passing on the opportunity to explain the lunacy.
His solution is equally imbecilic: Allowing the sale of 10-round magazines within the state but nevertheless requiring New Yorkers to only keep seven bullets in them. Violations will be a misdemeanor.
Meanwhile, he and his fellow statists will "clean up" the law by adding a magazine exemption for police and allowing his like-minded hypocrites in Hollywood to continue filming violent movies and TV shows in New York using weapons that are illegal under his gun-ban law. (http://www.naturalnews.com/039351_Cuomo_gun_control_Hollywood.html)
We can't make this stuff up.
In the meantime, neighbors will turn on neighbors as the promise of taxpayer-funded "rewards" drive them to turn each other in over a fundamental constitutional right.
And the societal breakdown continues. It's time for rational Americans to Escape from New York.
Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com
http://www.democratandchronicle.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/039351_Cuomo_gun_control_Hollywood.html
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