Editorial Op-ed
The killer ghosts
As if New York City’s gun violence
epidemic weren’t bad enough, the
bad guys have found a new way to
shoot people: ghost guns.
Sounding like something out of a bad
sci-fi fi lm on basic cable, ghost guns are
actually fi rearms that often come in the
form of do-it-yourself kits. The buyer then
assembles the weapon much like putting together
a model boat, but this is no facsimile
of a gun: it’s the real thing, and it’s lethal.
The danger behind ghost guns, as Senator
Chuck Schumer said Sunday, lies in
the ease by which anyone can buy and use
them. There’s no regulation on ghost guns
of any kind. They lack serial numbers.
And individuals who are legally barred
from owning an actual fi rearm — such as
ex-felons and those with mental illness —
can get around the law and acquire a ghost
gun.
The NYPD has made thousands of gun
arrests this year, more than they have in
decades. Working with prosecutors, they’re
also trying to cut off the infamous “iron
pipeline” that gun smugglers use to import
weapons into New York City from other
states with lax gun laws.
Diffi cult as it is to track down, the
NYPD is also working to get ghost guns
off the streets, too. This year, cops have
seized 135 of these weapons, just 10
fewer than the 145 taken off the streets
last year, with three months to go in
2021.
But the NYPD is going to need more help
than that to help stop more ghost guns from
creeping into the city. That will require
federal and state intervention.
Sitting on Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk
are two bills that specifi cally ban the sale
of ghost gun kits. The administration told
the New York Times last month that the
legislation was still under review, but we
think it’s time for Hochul to put her pen
to the paper and take an important step
toward getting these phantom fi rearms off
the streets.
The Biden administration must also
change the classifi cation of ghost guns
as fi rearms, closing a Justice Department
loophole that currently protects ghost gun
manufacturers.
Ghost guns must be removed from
society, lest their users make ghosts out of
others.
Publisher of The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now,
Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
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New York redistricting
– changes, and more
changes ahead?
BY JEFFREY M. WICE
After delays getting underway
followed by several weeks of a
statewide public “listening tour”
to receive ideas on how to draw new legislative
districts from the public, the New
York Independent Redistricting Commission
released two sets of congressional and
state legislative plans on Sept. 15.
The Commission was unable to agree
on a single set of maps but still met the
state constitutional deadline of Sept. 15 to
release draft maps before
setting out on a required
series of public hearings
that will start on Oct.
20 and go through
Nov. 23. The commission
is tasked
with developing new districts plans by
Jan. 1, 2022.
While Republican-appointed commission
members were critical of their Democratic
colleagues for not making efforts to
agree on a single plan before the deadline,
Democrats argue that the public now has
two sets of plans to consider before the
hearings. Either way, the prospects for
fi nal agreement on a fi nal plan appear, to
many analysts, as more of a challenge now
than they were before the draft maps were
released.
The Commission’s 10 members do
not have fi nal approval over the maps.
That job is left to the state legislature by
a constitutional amendment approved by
the state’s voters in 2014. Eight of the commissioners
were appointed by the state’s
four legislative leaders who then selected
two remaining members themselves (who
could not be either enrolled Democrats
or Republicans). It appears that the two
independent members split in their support
for the two partisan maps, each supporting
a different proposal.
With New York losing one of its current
27 congressional districts, the Commission
must work with drawing only 26 districts,
eliminating one by pairing two districts
or spreading out one district among several
other districts. The Commission is
also tasked with developing new maps for
Senate and Assembly districts. With two
sets of competing maps released by the
Commission on Sept. 15, the two parties
appeared far apart on how to draw the
new lines.
The upcoming series of public hearings
will provide New Yorkers with the
opportunity to comment on the maps. It
will be up to the Commission to determine
whether a single set of maps can be agreed
upon or whether several sets of maps will
be sent to the legislature
for approval.
If the Commission
cannot agree on
one plan, the Legislature
would then
draw the maps.
On November
2, New
York’s voters
will also be
asked to app
r o v e
another
const it utional
amendment
that would further reform the redistricting
process. The amendment would
change the number of votes needed for the
Commission and the legislature to approve
plans (eliminating current language that
requires majority and minority party commissioners
to approve plans and lowering
the vote approval thresholds in the Senate
and Assembly).
The proposed amendment also sets the
number of senators at 63. This sets a fi xed
number, not a cap, and prevents continuing
partisan abuse by the former Senate
Republican leaders employed for decades
when they added at least one new district
they could win after each census.
There are still several months to go before
new legislative lines need to be in place for
the 2022 election cycle. In the meantime,
the Commission will go on the road for its
hearings, followed by a new set of maps.
Recently, a coalition of good government
groups asked the Commission to undertake
future map mapping in open meetings,
where, like in California, Virginia and other
commission states, everything is done before
the public. We should have a better idea of
whether the Commission meets its mandate
by the end of the year.
Jeffrey M. Wice is an adjunct professor/
senior fellow at New York Law
School and and expert on redistricting.
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