Ontario County Calling For Repeal Of NY SAFE Act
By: Vanessa Herring
Updated: March 7, 2013
Opponents of the New York SAFE Act in Ontario County couldn't be more thrilled that the board of supervisors passed a resolution Thursday night calling on Governor Cuomo to repeal the legislation, "the people who live here can't travel to Albany every day to talk to their legislators we have to talk to our legislators here," said Roger Backus, who attended Thursday night's meeting, "so we need the people to come here to tell our legislators how they feel and for them to transmit that information to Albany."
John Sheppard, Supervisor for the Town of Seneca, introduced the resolution and imemdiately had the support of almost all the county supervisors, "I hope that the SAFE Act is repealed totally by our state legislative bodies and the governor," explained Sheppard, "I hope that they recognize that over 51 counties have submitted similar resolutions asking for the repeal." Dodie Huber, Supervisor for the Town of EAst Bloomfield added, "there was absolutely no time to read the information, it was pushed through. No public reaction. These people are supposed to represent the constituents of the state of NY and they just plain disrespected us."
Although the county doesn't have the authority to repeal the law many say the resolution sends a strong message to Albany, and by joining in with other counties the governor will have to listen, "don't you think the governor would stand up and take notice and say I need to think about this, we need to change this," said Richard Eaton, who attended Thursday night's meeting.
Supervisor Sheppard says if the governor doesn't listen to the counties calling for the repeal of the SAFE Act he'll go a step further by taking legal action against the state.
While most of the county supervisors supported passing the resolution, four voted against it.
John Sheppard, Supervisor for the Town of Seneca, introduced the resolution and imemdiately had the support of almost all the county supervisors, "I hope that the SAFE Act is repealed totally by our state legislative bodies and the governor," explained Sheppard, "I hope that they recognize that over 51 counties have submitted similar resolutions asking for the repeal." Dodie Huber, Supervisor for the Town of EAst Bloomfield added, "there was absolutely no time to read the information, it was pushed through. No public reaction. These people are supposed to represent the constituents of the state of NY and they just plain disrespected us."
Although the county doesn't have the authority to repeal the law many say the resolution sends a strong message to Albany, and by joining in with other counties the governor will have to listen, "don't you think the governor would stand up and take notice and say I need to think about this, we need to change this," said Richard Eaton, who attended Thursday night's meeting.
Supervisor Sheppard says if the governor doesn't listen to the counties calling for the repeal of the SAFE Act he'll go a step further by taking legal action against the state.
While most of the county supervisors supported passing the resolution, four voted against it.
Comments
The "SAFE" (Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act was debated in closed session without committee hearings, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it into law within an hour of its passage -- after waiving the required three-day public comment period. This 80 page legislation was passed late into the night... literally and figuratively under the cover of darkness. There existed no exigent need as claimed, of the Act%u2019s 60 sections, only three (3) took effect on its adoption into law. Cuomo bragged that New York now has the "toughest assault weapons ban" in the country but claimed that the law respects the Second Amendment and preserves the rights of "hunters and sportsmen." The former is true; the latter is not.
The most widely reported provision of the law is the total ban on the sale of military-style rifles classified as "assault weapons," effective Jan. 15. The provision forever prohibits anyone other than a law enforcement agency from acquiring such weapons, including the popular hunting and target variants of the AR-15 rifle. Current owners of such rifles must register them with the state by 2014, and the registration must be renewed every five years. This gives the state a list of persons from which to confiscate them in the future, and the five-year renewal provision gives the state the opportunity to deny ownership once every five years. Current owners of such rifles may never sell them to another New York State resident in the future or pass them down to members of their family.
Shockingly enough, in many ways the "assault weapons ban" is actually one of the statute's lesser infringements on the Second Amendment. The statute criminalizes, potentially criminalizes, or places under state surveillance even the most innocuous, banal, and pedestrian forms of gun ownership, and it restricts the right of self-defense. The new law prohibits the sale of any quantity of ammunition by anyone other than a licensed dealer and requires that such dealer perform a criminal background check on the purchaser and forward the purchaser's name, address, age, and occupation, and the quantity, caliber, and make of the ammunition, to a State Police database. Thus, the ammunition database creates a de facto universal long gun registry. A hunter who purchases a box of five 12-gauge deer slugs will have the effect of documenting ownership of a 12-gauge shotgun.
The law affirmatively requires that a person's firearms must be confiscated if any order of protection is filed against them -- no matter how meager the complaint may be. It also requires that a "mental health professional" (including a physician) who believes that an individual is a danger to himself or others must report his or her diagnosis to the police for purposes of firearm confiscation. Such a diagnosis is highly subjective. But the law exempts such "professionals" from civil liability; thus, any "mental health professional can initiate the confiscation of a person's firearms, and the gun owner is forbidden to file a civil suit to challenge the "diagnosis."
The SAFE Act also severely infringes on the right of self-defense from criminal predation. Although Article 35 of New York Penal law allows the use of deadly force in the event of a home invasion, the SAFE Act restricts the ammunition capacity of all arms to seven rounds. If you possess a magazine loaded with more than seven rounds in your own home, you are guilty of a criminal offense. If a criminal with a stolen handgun and an illegal 15-round magazine invades your home and you shoot at him with more than eight rounds (seven plus one in the chamber), you will be criminally charged, and your magazine (and possibly your firearm) will be confiscated and destroyed without compensation, because you have now used it in the commission of a crime. Beyond that, since a handgun permit in New York is not merely a permit to carry, but a permit to possess, after you have been charged with the crime of shooting at the home invader with a high-capacity magazine, your permit will be revoked, and all of your handguns will be confiscated.
The seven-round magazine limit effectively bans or severely restricts the use of perhaps 75% of the firearms designed in the past 100 years. Seven-round magazines simply do not exist for common firearms such as the 10-shot Ruger 10/22 rifle, five million of which have been manufactured since the 1960s. Although the Act "grandfathers" existing ten-round magazines, it forbids owners to put more than seven rounds in them, and it requires lawful owners of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds to sell them out of state, surrender them, or destroy them. This is clearly an unconstitutional deprivation of private property, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
The law also prohibits the private "sale" or "exchange" of any firearm to any person unless a licensed dealer performs the "sale" and a background check. The politically correct law exempts parents, spouses, children, stepchildren and "domestic partners," but if a serial [censored] and murderer is on the loose, you may not give a shotgun to your sister for self-protection. You may not give your brother or nephew a .22 rifle on Christmas Eve. The law does not clarify how long someone must be in possession of a firearm before such possession is understood to be an "exchange"; thus, it is possible that lending a rifle to your brother-in-law for deer season without a dealer transfer and a background check could be construed as an illegal exchange." You would then be a criminal, and the gun used in the "crime" could be confiscated and destroyed.
Finally, the SAFE Act requires that gun owners report any "loss or theft" of a firearm or ammunition to the police within 24 hours. Failure to do so is a criminal offense. Read literally, a deer hunter who drops a single 12-gauge slug in the snow and cannot find it is a criminal unless he reports the loss to the police.
The New York SAFE Act is one of the most brazen assaults on the Constitution and on individual liberty in the history of the United States. Cuomo has thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald decisions in 2008 and 2010 affirming the right to keep and bear arms. The intent of the law is to suppress and criminalize the common use of firearms, including guns not defined as "assault weapons." This legislation does not have the support of our law enforcement community, which Cuomo failed to consult or exempt, despite being tasked with its enforcement. In fact, the NY State Sheriffs Association has specifically opposed the act. The New York State Association of County Clerks and the New York State Association of Counties have also passed resolutions opposing the NY SAFE act. More significantly, 50 of New York's 62 counties have either passed, or are in the process of passing, resolutions calling for the repeal of the SAFE Act, that list continues to grow. New York has the highest taxes in the nation. It is ranked as the least "business-friendly" state in the country. The implementation of this legislation is not only going to cost NY state 36 million dollars a year, it has created a hostile environment for both in-state and out of state sports men and women who now risk committing crimes for the countless technical criminal violations created by the SAFE Act for possessing items which can be purchased over the counter in all our neighboring states.
Michael S.
March 7, 2013 at 10:23 pm
The "SAFE" (Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act was debated in closed session without committee hearings, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it into law within an hour of its passage -- after waiving the required three-day public comment period. This 80 page legislation was passed late into the night... literally and figuratively under the cover of darkness. There existed no exigent need as claimed, of the Act%u2019s 60 sections, only three (3) took effect on its adoption into law. Cuomo bragged that New York now has the "toughest assault weapons ban" in the country but claimed that the law respects the Second Amendment and preserves the rights of "hunters and sportsmen." The former is true; the latter is not.
The most widely reported provision of the law is the total ban on the sale of military-style rifles classified as "assault weapons," effective Jan. 15. The provision forever prohibits anyone other than a law enforcement agency from acquiring such weapons, including the popular hunting and target variants of the AR-15 rifle. Current owners of such rifles must register them with the state by 2014, and the registration must be renewed every five years. This gives the state a list of persons from which to confiscate them in the future, and the five-year renewal provision gives the state the opportunity to deny ownership once every five years. Current owners of such rifles may never sell them to another New York State resident in the future or pass them down to members of their family.
Shockingly enough, in many ways the "assault weapons ban" is actually one of the statute's lesser infringements on the Second Amendment. The statute criminalizes, potentially criminalizes, or places under state surveillance even the most innocuous, banal, and pedestrian forms of gun ownership, and it restricts the right of self-defense. The new law prohibits the sale of any quantity of ammunition by anyone other than a licensed dealer and requires that such dealer perform a criminal background check on the purchaser and forward the purchaser's name, address, age, and occupation, and the quantity, caliber, and make of the ammunition, to a State Police database. Thus, the ammunition database creates a de facto universal long gun registry. A hunter who purchases a box of five 12-gauge deer slugs will have the effect of documenting ownership of a 12-gauge shotgun.
The law affirmatively requires that a person's firearms must be confiscated if any order of protection is filed against them -- no matter how meager the complaint may be. It also requires that a "mental health professional" (including a physician) who believes that an individual is a danger to himself or others must report his or her diagnosis to the police for purposes of firearm confiscation. Such a diagnosis is highly subjective. But the law exempts such "professionals" from civil liability; thus, any "mental health professional can initiate the confiscation of a person's firearms, and the gun owner is forbidden to file a civil suit to challenge the "diagnosis."
The SAFE Act also severely infringes on the right of self-defense from criminal predation. Although Article 35 of New York Penal law allows the use of deadly force in the event of a home invasion, the SAFE Act restricts the ammunition capacity of all arms to seven rounds. If you possess a magazine loaded with more than seven rounds in your own home, you are guilty of a criminal offense. If a criminal with a stolen handgun and an illegal 15-round magazine invades your home and you shoot at him with more than eight rounds (seven plus one in the chamber), you will be criminally charged, and your magazine (and possibly your firearm) will be confiscated and destroyed without compensation, because you have now used it in the commission of a crime. Beyond that, since a handgun permit in New York is not merely a permit to carry, but a permit to possess, after you have been charged with the crime of shooting at the home invader with a high-capacity magazine, your permit will be revoked, and all of your handguns will be confiscated.
The seven-round magazine limit effectively bans or severely restricts the use of perhaps 75% of the firearms designed in the past 100 years. Seven-round magazines simply do not exist for common firearms such as the 10-shot Ruger 10/22 rifle, five million of which have been manufactured since the 1960s. Although the Act "grandfathers" existing ten-round magazines, it forbids owners to put more than seven rounds in them, and it requires lawful owners of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds to sell them out of state, surrender them, or destroy them. This is clearly an unconstitutional deprivation of private property, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
The law also prohibits the private "sale" or "exchange" of any firearm to any person unless a licensed dealer performs the "sale" and a background check. The politically correct law exempts parents, spouses, children, stepchildren and "domestic partners," but if a serial [censored] and murderer is on the loose, you may not give a shotgun to your sister for self-protection. You may not give your brother or nephew a .22 rifle on Christmas Eve. The law does not clarify how long someone must be in possession of a firearm before such possession is understood to be an "exchange"; thus, it is possible that lending a rifle to your brother-in-law for deer season without a dealer transfer and a background check could be construed as an illegal exchange." You would then be a criminal, and the gun used in the "crime" could be confiscated and destroyed.
Finally, the SAFE Act requires that gun owners report any "loss or theft" of a firearm or ammunition to the police within 24 hours. Failure to do so is a criminal offense. Read literally, a deer hunter who drops a single 12-gauge slug in the snow and cannot find it is a criminal unless he reports the loss to the police.
The New York SAFE Act is one of the most brazen assaults on the Constitution and on individual liberty in the history of the United States. Cuomo has thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald decisions in 2008 and 2010 affirming the right to keep and bear arms. The intent of the law is to suppress and criminalize the common use of firearms, including guns not defined as "assault weapons." This legislation does not have the support of our law enforcement community, which Cuomo failed to consult or exempt, despite being tasked with its enforcement. In fact, the NY State Sheriffs Association has specifically opposed the act. The New York State Association of County Clerks and the New York State Association of Counties have also passed resolutions opposing the NY SAFE act. More significantly, 50 of New York's 62 counties have either passed, or are in the process of passing, resolutions calling for the repeal of the SAFE Act, that list continues to grow. New York has the highest taxes in the nation. It is ranked as the least "business-friendly" state in the country. The implementation of this legislation is not only going to cost NY state 36 million dollars a year, it has created a hostile environment for both in-state and out of state sports men and women who now risk committing crimes for the countless technical criminal violations created by the SAFE Act for possessing items which can be purchased over the counter in all our neighboring states.
Michael S.
March 7, 2013 at 10:22 pm
