In New York, possessing a pistol in public without a permit comes with a mandatory prison sentence of 3.5 years in state prison, since merely having a gun in a holster is treated as a violent felony.
So what happens to the government employee who knowingly issues a permit to someone who should have been denied? Do they get charged with a violent felony? Do they go to prison for several years?
No. No, they do not.
A former Erie County Clerk’s office employee has been sentenced for fraudulently issuing a pistol permit.
Raymond A. Brinson, 32, of Buffalo was sentenced in Buffalo City Court to a one-year conditional discharge. He pleaded guilty in May to one count of official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor.
A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail, but Brinson received the lowest possible sentence. Under New York’s conditional discharge rules, Brinson won’t have to check in with a probation officer or face any other conditions. So long as he stays out of trouble for the next 12 months he has nothing to worry about.
To be clear, this wasn’t a case of a government employee making a mistake with a permit application. According to prosecutors, Brinson was well aware of what he was doing.
According to prosecutors, the Erie County Clerk’s Office was contacted in April 2025 after the New York State Police reported receiving coupons for four firearms tied to an Erie County resident who did not have a pistol permit on file.
The Clerk’s Office said it could not find documentation showing the resident had a permit, but records showed the resident’s application had been denied in March 2021. Prosecutors said Brinson entered the denial notation into the records while working for the office.
The resident submitted another application in 2022 and Brinson denied that one as well, but when the applicant tried for a third time in 2023 Brinson approved it, though the information was apparently never forwarded on to the New York State Police. According to prosecutors, Brinson had “communicated” with the resident before he issued the permit and coupons, though it’s not clear what Brinson received in exchange for approving the application.
I think it’s utterly ridiculous for New York to treat the unlicensed possession of a pistol as a violent felony worthy of more than three years in prison, but it’s truly unconscionable when the state is going out of its way to avoid punishing government employees who willfully violate the law and issue permits under false pretenses.
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane even issued a press release after Brinson took a plea deal that patted his office and local law enforcement on the back for a job well done.
DA Keane commends the New York State Police, Erie County Clerk’s Office and Detective Dan Brinkerhoff of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office for their work in this investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Chief Gary M. Ertel of the Public Integrity Unit.
Good job on the investigation maybe, but a terrible job on the prosecution. If New York prosecutors are willing to live with a slap on the wrist for government employees who fraudulently issue pistol permits, then they should be equally as lenient when a defendant is charged with merely possessing a pistol without the required permit. And if New York truly recognized the Constitution and the Second Amendment, no permit would be needed to begin with.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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