Marc Molinaro brought up the SAFE Act while campaigning in Utica:
“… Molinaro said he would dismantle the SAFE Act; something he said would make the state safer. He added that the focus should be on the root causes of violent acts and not making criminals out of honest citizens …”
Molinaro has a progun record from his time in the Assembly and as Dutchess Co. Executive and there is nothing wrong with campaigning on that record.
However, he does have a few problems:
- His running-mate Julie Killian has antigun record. This might be tolerable if she brought something positive to the campaign which she doesn’t given her proven track record of failure at the ballot box.
- He publicly stated he does not want any help from the NRA. It’s fine not to want to make gun control a central issue of the campaign and it is also fine not to want to accept any corporation donations. But singling out NRA, and by extension members like me, can be construed as insulting. NRA’s response should have been, “Fine. Go fuck yourself.”
- Republicans own the SAFE Act as much as the Cuomo and the Democrats do.
The Governor decided to pounce on Molinaro with this ad:
- This ad isn’t effective. It’s just nasty and tries to portray Molinaro himself as nasty. I have never heard of anyone referring to Molinaro that way and is not very believable.
- Just last week the Governor himself acknowledged that a key component of the SAFE Act, an ammunition sales database, has not been implemented and he doesn’t know when or if it ever will be up and running.
- It is obvious that the vast majority of gun owners are simply refusing to comply with SAFE.
- There is no pro-gun control voting block.
So what are the campaigns going to get from all this? Nothing. The negatives outweigh the positives for both of them.