Handcuffed, arrested, and now faces three and a half years in jail for firearms possession – for the crime of being unaware that the Second Amendment does not apply in New York City

The title is taken from the article,  Bloomberg’s Law, by Mark Steyn where he discusses the case of Meredith Graves, a 39-year-old nurse and medical student from Tennessee, who was in Manhattan with her husband on Dec. 22, 2010.   They wanted to visit the 9/11 Memorial to pay their respects to those who were killed.   When Graves saw the signs forbidding firearms, she asked the staff if she could check her pistol (lawful and licensed in her home state).   She was then handcuffed, arrested, and now faces three and a half years in jail for firearms possession.  Before you stop reading, Meridith Graves could be you, or me, or anyone you know who legally carries a firearm.  Let's review what happened and then dig deeper.

One of the most disturbing features of the US justice system is its ever more grotesque loss of proportion, at the federal level and in far too many states and municipalities. On his radio show this week, Derb discusses the case of Meredith Graves, the Tennessee nurse ...

Asked about the case, New York’s thuggish mayor decided to add insult to injury:

Let’s assume that she didn’t get arrested for carrying a gun. She probably would have gotten arrested for the cocaine that was in her pocket.

There was no cocaine. The white stuff in her pocket was analyzed by Bloomberg’s cops and found to be, as the nurse had said it was, aspirin powder. So this loathsome slug of a man has slandered an ordinary American citizen on tape in front of the world. Why? Because he can.

As Kevin Williamson wrote:

You can be confident that Meredith Graves will be locked up, because it is far easier to lock up law-abiding types such as Meredith Graves than it is to police the criminals who actually do the murders and muggings. This isn’t a question of whether the government’s behavior is constitutional or unconstitutional, but of whether the government’s behavior constitutes government, of whether it makes any sense at all, and of whether government can establish elementary priorities and exercise elementary discretion.

Anyone with any knowledge of New York City’s standard operating procedure could have guessed the answer to that. But we might have known that Bloomberg would effortlessly sink to new depths. It is outrageous that his enforcers are obtuse enough to seek jail time for Meredith Graves. But it is entirely unacceptable for the chief executive of a major American jurisdiction to slur innocent private citizens as coke snorters simply because he’s in power and they’re not. Like Derb, I hope Mrs Graves sues the pants off this tinpot toad.  (The Corner, at National Review Online)

So it is perfectly OK for Mayor Bloomberg to make up lies about an upstanding American citizen and tell people she had cocain in her pocket, just make it up out of thin air. Well, she was a gun owner, she must be a cocain user or mule!  Right???  How insulting to every American.

 "I am sick and tired of Bloomberg demonizing gun owners," SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said. "The only thing worse than Bloomberg's New York gun laws is Bloomberg himself. If Bloomberg ever had any credibility at all, it no longer exists. His deliberate slander of Meredith Graves is reprehensible, and he should be ashamed." (John Haughey, Outdoor Life)

Hold your fire!

Meridith Graves is a nurse and medical student living in Louisville in Blount County with her husband.  As Knox News points out "She's been called everything from an idiot to a heroine."  A defense fund has been started for her.  New York may be backing down.  But the question is about state concealed-carry reciprocity.  

Meridith Graves technically did break the law, which some might argue should be punishable by a fine, not 3-1/2 years in prison:

All she had to do was visit her own state’s website to find a list of other states that would recognize her permit. She would have seen that New York isn’t on it. Instead, she simply assumed that because Tennessee had granted her a permit, she was free to run around the country with a gun in her purse. (Robert Verbruggen, The Corner)

 

Fired Up!

Haven't we all been Meridith Graves at some point?  Carrying your weapon in your pocket/purse becomes so second nature you almost forget about it at times.  You put it on like you do your shoes, belt, socks.  It becomes part of your every day routine. 

There would be no story if Meridith Graves had kept her possession of a personal weapon quiet.  As we have said here many times, no one will even know you are carrying, unless you are required to actually use your weapon to defend yourself.

Now even some on the Left are calling for changes in the gun laws. 

Hold on to your bonnet. While Mayor Mike would no doubt love to throw her in the Big Apple’s deepest dungeon for a few years, other local New York City pols are having second thoughts about prosecuting Meredith Graves, the Tennessee woman arrested at the 9/11 memorial earlier this week. As city councilman Peter Vallone Jr. said, “By prosecuting this woman and seeking 3 1/2 years of jail, we are shooting our own [gun-control] efforts in the foot and giving the rest of the country ammunition.” So to speak. The problem – and Vallone sees it quite clearly – is Graves makes the perfect HR 822 poster child…

Quick, swallow your coffee before reading on. From nypost.com:

“Clearly, the laws are too strict here, but that’s something we need to work out for ourselves without honoring licenses to carry guns in states where felons can carry them,” (Vallone) said.

Forget the BS about states where felons can carry guns. Did you ever think you’d read words like that (the laws are too strict here) uttered by a Queens Democrat? What’s changed? Now they have a hot potato in their hands. A law-abiding nurse – a tourist – from Tennessee who merely tried to comply with the “No Guns Allowed” sign she saw at the memorial. Only now she’s in jail looking at serious time. And the local elected officials’ real fear is that Graves will become a martyr.  (Dan Zimmerman, The Truth About Guns)

 

Target Constitutional Rights:

Apparently the Constitution doesn't apply equally in every state to every person.

Graves "is a prime example of why national reciprocity is needed," wrote said Jeff Knox on FirearmsCoalition.org. "No one should have to worry about whether their constitutionally guaranteed rights are recognized from one jurisdiction to the next."
           
The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 was passed in House of Representatives 272-154 on Nov. 15. It would allow gun owners to travel more easily from state-to-state without worrying if their permit to carry is valid.
           
However, it is not expected to be taken up by the Democratic-led Senate, where a similar measure failed in 2009.
           
In essence, Graves -- by mandatory N.Y. law -- must do prison time for exercising a right guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution at a place in which those rights and that Constitution were attacked.

 

Meridith Graves will become the poster woman for change concerning the rights of gun owners. 

 

Comments

[R.J. Godlewski]

I posted a link to this article over at one of the LinkedIn groups and the first response was:

"Unfortunately nice law abiding citizens that are authorized to carry firearms in other states, kill people too.We always need to be on high alert in NYC."

No wonder NYC is not at the top of my "dream vacations" list...

[John]

I find it hard to believe that anyone who would go to the trouble of obtaining a carry permit in one state did not have the awareness that the permit was not an authorization to carry in every other state.

[R.J. Godlewski]

@John,

She may not have been 'carrying' per se and, again, may have wrongfully assumed that the pending legislation in Washington had passed.

Of course, with the amount of states that allow carry and recognize other states' permits, she might have been incredulous over the existence of states that still refuse to grant fundamental rights...

[GoneWithTheWind]

This is where I have always faulted the NRA (of which I am a life member). They should be fighting this all the way to the supreme court. The 2nd amendment gives the citizens the right to carry (open, concealed, whatever) and in so doing denyed the federal and state governments the ability to infringe on that right. This law is unconstitutional and should be fought to the Supreme Court.

[Lee]

The Sullivan Act was drafted by a corrupt Tammany Hall politician in the final stages of tertiary syphilus. And as a prescient follower of Rahm Emmanuel's maxim ("Never let a crisis go to waste"--or maybe he was the inspiration for Emmanual....), Sullivan still had enough brain function left to ride the coattails of the public indignation over a very sensational murder. Sullivan's goal was to keep his gang enforcers safer--from legally owned and carrid firearms.

[reb]

Snake Hunter Sez,

I would remind the good folks at RightTruth that this same Mayor Bloomberg thought it a fine idea to allow muslims to build a Cordoba Victory Mosque & Cultural Center within two blocks of the WTC where 3,000 innocents died on 9/11/2001.

Check out S/H blogsite, for another mind-snapper outrage posted on January 01, 2012

'Letting Obama Be Obama', by Professor Paul Kengor, Phd

http://www.lazyonebenn.blogspot.com
___ ___

[PALADIN]

I guess the liberal oxygen thieves think it's better that she go unarmed and be mugged or raped, than to exercize her rights and defend herself against the predators that infest our neighborhoods today......PATHETIC !