The 2nd Amendment, Stephen Decatur & Me

Stephen Decatur

I didn't really want this fight.  When I moved to New York in 2016, I simply wanted to have my pistols for protection and work (I am licenced as a Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator and am legally obligation to "take", i.e. "kill", animals suspected of rabies for testing.)

But then I ran into New York's Pistol Licensing scheme and found it wanting in due process, equal protection and respect for the Second Amendment.  I wished I could just look away, but  . . . I couldn't.  So as few can afford to challenge New York and I do know how, it was off to the races.

Now, after waiting six hundred (600) days for a decision on my Application for a pistol license, I received that decision on March 9, 2020.  In that Decision, Licensing Officer (and County Court Judge) Watches rested his sole reason for denying my Application that: “[Sibley] has failed to demonstrate good moral character.” Notably, Licensing Officer Watches did not find that I had failed to demonstrate “good cause” for such a license.

Fortunately, it is not 1820 and I don't have to challenge Licencing Officer Watches to a duel ala Stephen Decatur to defend my Honor and Family Name as Decatur did 200 years ago almost to the day.  Instead, there is a Court system to address this slur and I look forward to vigorously pursing vindication.

To that end, I have recently filed a pleading which briefly (well, as briefly as a lawyer can) and indisputably demonstrates structural and systemic failures in New York’s pistol licensing procedures and seeks relief not only for me but system-wide reforms.  I have also asked the Court to "fish or cut bait" as my Fundamental right to self-defense in my home is at issue. 

The noted jurist and High Priest of U.S. Jurisprudence, William Blackstone said it best in 1769: “[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society.” 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries 139.  Yet, this is what New York has done to me . . . and 13 million other law-abiding New York Citizens.

Particularly now when the foundations of our civil society are being shaken, this need for self-defense is more pressing than anytime in our Country's history.