A New York sheriff apparently urged a group of Oath Keepers at an event on Saturday to defy the state’s gun laws and throw away invitations to renew their handgun permits.
“I’m asking everybody who gets those invitations to throw them in the garbage, because that’s where they belong,” Sheriff Thomas Lorey told a group of Oath Keepers, a loose organization of police and military officers who pledge not to enforce laws it deems unconstitutional. Video of Lorey’s comments was posted online Sunday.
“They go in the garbage because, for 100 years or more, ever since the inception of pistol permits, nobody has ever been required to renew them,” the sheriff said.
Lorey was referring to the 2013 NY SAFE Act, which mandates that handgun owners update their permits every five years with the sheriff’s office. The sheriff said he purposely signed up his county for the law’s pilot program to make a point.
“Let’s have everybody’s permit expire the same day and let ’em see what they’re going to do with it,” he said, adding that he believed courts would strike down the law anyway.
Watch Lorey’s statement below:
h/t RawStory
