Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A Yates County woman is suing the state claiming she should have had legal representation to defend her handgun license after police in 2015 impounded her guns following hospitalization for a night due to a cough syrup reaction.
"No one facing federal and state disqualification from the ownership, use, and possession of firearms should represent themselves at a license hearing," Rochester-area lawyer Paloma Capanna said in a prepared statement about the suit she has filed on behalf of Donna McKay.
While McKay eventually had her license and guns returned, Capanna believes she should have had legal representation when authorities confiscated the weapons in April 2015.
According to the court filing and Capanna, McKay had checked herself into the Soldiers and Sailors Hospital in Penn Yan after experiencing a bad reaction to cough medicine.
She went home the next morning but the incident led authorities erroneously, Capanna said, to add McKay to a list of people who were involuntarily committed to a hospital.
Under the SAFE Act gun control law that can be grounds for authorities to confiscate an individual's guns. McKay, who is described as a lifelong hunter, eventually got her guns and license after a hearing.
But Capanna contends that McKay is still wrongfully on a federal background check list of people who shouldn't have weapons.
When McKay was reported in the state system in 2015, the information also was passed along to the FBI, which maintains the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or NCIS, as a red flag for people who shouldn't have weapons.
By not having representation when police initially took her weapons she was deprived of due process, Capanna contends.
The suit, filed earlier in December in federal court in Rochester, seeks an injunction that would require the state to provide legal counsel in gun confiscation cases and notification to individuals who are facing confiscation.
State Police declined to comment since the matter was pending litigation.
An estimated 380,000 New Yorkers have been reported to the NCIC database. Capanna argues that those people should be notified.
Capanna has filed several lawsuits challenging various aspects of the SAFE Act, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed and pushed through in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. Twenty children and six adults were killed.
While the law is best known for its ban on assault weapons, there are other parts that call for mental health professionals to report people who own guns and who may present a risk to themselves or others.
In 2015 she went to court and won the release of statistics on how many people had registered their assault weapons. Those who had them prior to the law could keep them but are required to register them with the State Police.
At the time, in June 2015, 23,847 people had applied to register assault weapons. A total of 44,485 weapons had been registered.
Capanna contends in her lawsuit state officials have carried that function out in an unconstitutional manner.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Gun-confiscation-prompts-lawsuit-10818702.php