Gun Politics New York

The Times Union wonders, “Six years later, key SAFE Act database undone“:”

“… Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo touted New York’s tough anti-gun laws as a nationwide model during a radio interview on Monday. Cuomo did not mention that six years years after passage of the landmark SAFE Act, a key plank remains unimplemented: the state’s plan to build a database to track ammunition purchases in real time … Beau Duffy, a spokesman for the agency in charge of implementing the database, the New York State Police, said its completion remains a “priority.” Work on the database is ongoing in tandem with the state Office of Information Technology Services. “That work will continue until the database is realized,” Duffy said. “Connecting dealers with a state system is a significant hurdle, one that did not exist in California, since the infrastructure linking firearms dealers directly to the state was already in place.” … Cuomo’s public responses have suggested he’s not keeping close tabs of the database’s development. Asked about the holdup in a September 2018 meeting with the Times Union’s editorial board, Cuomo repeatedly said he was unaware of the progress on the project. “I don’t know. I will check,” Cuomo said. “But it is not a significant aspect of the SAFE Act.” … In September 2018, [Rich] Azzopardi told the Times Union that the State Police and ITS had “reviewed a number of technological solutions” to implement the database, and had been “unable to address the myriad of legal and operational implementation obstacles.” …”

I got the real reason for the delay from a friend who worked in the A.G.’s office.

The information they want to put into this database either doesn’t exist, or it exists only on paper or in an incompatible electronic format.  There’s no way to simply import this information into a new database. Furthermore, the Governor and legislature knew this beforehand but went ahead with the bill anyway. That is why he’s unconcerned about it.