Free Dexter Taylor

New York has sentenced a 53-year-old black man with no criminal history to 10 years behind bars for the crime of exercising his constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights.

Dexter Taylor, a software engineer from Brooklyn, was raided by police and arrested in 2022 after Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzales, the man who pledged to lead “the most progressive D.A.'s office in the country,” brought a 37-count indictment against him. The crime? Taylor was using his skills as a machinist to build his own firearms, specifically firearms that Democrats have nicknamed “ghost guns,” or guns built by nontraditional manufacturers.

Taylor explained his hobby to conservative commentator Jeff Charles: “I found out that you can actually legally buy a receiver and you can machine that receiver to completion, and you buy your parts and you put them together and you've got a pistol or a rifle. And once I saw that, I was hooked. I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever. This is the most cool thing you could possibly do in your machine shop.’”

Being a conservative gun owner living in New York, Taylor always had the deck stacked against him. The lawless Left brought the power of the state against Taylor because his firearms lacked licenses required by the state, even though his “crimes” were victimless and, if the Constitution is to be taken seriously, were no crimes at all. Judge Abena Darkeh boldly revealed the Left’s philosophy from the bench, telling Taylor’s attorney, “Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.”

“This is New York,” indeed. Specifically, the same jurisdiction of New York that hands out remarkably light sentences to violent criminals up to and including killers and child rapists and is currently trying to throw the book at Daniel Penny , a Marine veteran accused of killing a mentally ill man while preventing him from harming innocent civilians on the subway.

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Dexter Taylor’s legal team will appeal, and there is hope that following a string of pro-Second Amendment rulings by the Supreme Court, his conviction could ultimately be overturned. Part of Taylor’s statement given just before sentencing, which can be read in full here , says, “Let us show them a soldier's intensity and diplomat's calm. Let our adversaries find us stern in battle, patient in defeat, and gracious in our ultimate victory, which is certain. In short, when our adversaries look for us, let them find reasonable men and irrational patriots.”

Godspeed, Dexter. Irrational patriots everywhere are praying and rooting for you.

Brady Leonard ( @bradyleonard ) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.