Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire More on NY gun law

Fred LeBrun, a Times-Union columnist wrote this for today:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's NY SAFE Act is in full effect. Gun violence in New York is history. We are saved.

Then again, maybe not.

The law many be technically in full effect, but many of the provisions have not been implemented yet, delayed for mysterious reasons or because of problems creating databases, or enforcement glitches.

Last Tuesday was the deadline for gun owners in this state to register their so-called assault weapons � guns that fit a broad political rather than military definition � with the New York State Police, the keystone provision in the legislation. Failure to register such a weapon was suddenly a misdemeanor or, in some cases, a felony. As the clock struck midnight, tens of thousands of otherwise law abiding New Yorkers � veterans who defended our country, upstanding citizens in their communities � were made criminals by a stroke of Gov. Cuomo's pen.

The actual number is admittedly a wild-eyed guess because the NY SAFE Act conveniently prohibits the release of compliance numbers. It is convenient in that it saves the governor and those in the Legislature who trampled on democracy to get the NY SAFE Act passed 15 months ago from seeing in stark numbers what massive civil disobedience looks like.

More to the point, it lessens the political leverage the noncompliance possesses when quantified. Those are voters.

Tom King, president of the New York State Pistol and Rifle Association, says his sources have told him that between 3,000 and 5,000 assault weapons have been registered. The pro-gun group BearingArms.com has posted similar numbers, citing police sources. These are biased groups, but even if the numbers are twice that, say 10,000 assault weapons registered, that's a piddling amount. King estimates there are between 1 million and 2 million qualifying weapons in New York state, ''with a million definitely a low-ball figure. Remember, in recent years these are among the most popular and sought-after guns, and the assault weapon design features have been around and for sale for nearly 50 years,'' he said.

So at best, we're speaking of a non-compliance rate bordering on 99 percent statewide. That's astounding.

How many gun owners that translates to is also speculation. Gun ownership fits a number of predictable models.

The majority of gun owning homes upstate inherited dad's shotgun, or an uncle's .22 or and maybe a deer rifle, guns probably exempted from Cuomo's registry. Then there are those who have kept up with technology, specialized hunters and avid collectors. Handgun owners are another category, for over a century tightly regulated.

So it's fair to assume that many who own assault weapons, by the Cuomo definition, own more than one. A million assault weapons does not mean a million gun owners, or voters. But just how many it does mean is anybody's guess.

Next door in Connecticut, which passed a similar assault weapon registry law in the wake of the Newtown school tragedy, noncompliance has been about 85 percent.

But there are two notable differences with New York. In the Nutmeg state, the compliance numbers are indeed officially posted. About 50,000 assault weapons were registered out of an estimated 350,000 in the state.

This startling lack of legal compliance has forced the state Legislature there to refocus on the law and why so many habitually law-abiding citizens refuse to obey it.

Another reason Connecticut gun owners lag New Yorkers in failing to register their assault weapons is that for them it constitutes a felony, period.

But getting back to New York and how much safer we all are for the NY SAFE Act, consider what this legislation has actually done.

It has not gotten rid of or registered ''assault weapons,'' although a few have been modified to pass muster, or sold. Most are now to some degree illegal firearms, locked away in a gray world of under the table transactions where bad things are likelier to happen.

If that is progress and makes us safer, then I am the king of Belgium.

It has polarized upstate and downstate over gun control rather than foster common ground. It has vilified law-abiding gun owners, both long-gun owners and handgun owners, driven up costs for ammunition and guns themselves and trampled upon our civil liberties. We are more suspicious of government now than we have ever been � and this is a liberal Democrat saying that.

Connecticut state police apparently have done nothing so far to enforce noncompliance. That's a wise course of action and one New York should follow for now. By the end of the year, the constitutional challenge to the NY SAFE Act brought by Tom King's group will have passed through the 2nd circuit appeals court in New York City. That is likely to bring a ruling more favorable to gun control groups and the NY SAFE Act than to King's pro-gun crowd.

But that simply sets the stage for what has been imagined from the beginning, a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Until then, the smart thing for law enforcement to do is just let it be. A tragic consequence of a lousy law would be a heartbreaking epitaph, especially if that law is struck down.

flebruntimesunion.com � 518-454-5453