SEIU astroturf

SEIU astroturf tried holding a pro-SAFE Act rally in Buffalo.  According to WIVB:

“… Dozens of people gathered at Martin Luther King Park to show support for New York’s new gun law, the SAFE Act. …”

We had 12,000 people in Albany last month and nobody was paid to show up.

Why SEIU supports SAFE Act

Brain Lehrer interviewed SEIU 1199 President George Gresham on his radio program today on why the union is supporting the SAFE Act

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I give credit to Lehrer for asking if Gresham is doing this just for political purposes to solidify his relationship with (suck up to) Gov. Cuomo.  I call BS on Gresham’s answer, though.

Schneiderman’s public relations stunts

Eric Schniederman sent out a glowing presser yesterday touting the “new” procedures gun show operators will follow in the state:

“… “Gun violence is everyone’s concern, and I’m proud that we’ve worked with gun show operators to create simple procedures to ensure that deadly weapons don’t make it into the hands of felons, terrorists, the dangerously mentally ill, or anyone else who could not pass a background check,” Attorney General Schneiderman said.  “These procedures are unique to New York State and represent the first time law enforcement and gun show operators are working together to eliminate illegal gun sales.  Since most people who operate and attend gun shows are law abiding citizens, my office has had nothing but positive responses to these new safety standards.” …”

Sounds serious doesn’t it?  Serious, unless one bothers to actually find out what these new procedures mean.  Schneiderman, of course, was counting on the media not to do that, which they didn’t, except for one inquisitive reporter for the NY Times who asked my opinion:

“… Jacob J. Rieper, the vice president of legislative and political affairs for the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, suggested the new changes were largely cosmetic.   “The only new procedure in place at the last gun show I went to consisted of a single white piece of paper taped onto each dealer table that said a NICS check was required for sales,” Mr. Rieper said, referring to the background check. “That’s it.  No doubt countless lives will be saved because of it.” …”

This isn’t Schniderman’s only recent PR stunt.  He’s also written to the NFL commissioner to express his concern for gay football players.

An NRA-ACLU partnership

There is an excellent op-ed at FoxNews titled, “The five minute NRA speech that would change the gun control debate forever,” where the author suggests the NRA partner with the ACLU to find solutions to the mentally ill going on violent rampages.

NRA should seriously consider this.  It would be a vast improvement from that godawful press conference they gave after Newtown.

Think of the children

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal cares about the children:


She just doesn’t care enough about them to do something about the 1 in 3 students who don’t graduate from schools in her Manhattan district.

Bloomberg planned to exploit tradegy

Politicker reports that Mayor Mike planned ahead of time to exploit the next tradegy:

“When the smoke cleared at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in the wee hours of a Friday morning last July, 12 people were dead, 58 were injured and Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in New York, readying an assault of his own.  The campaign that Mr. Bloomberg and his “gun team” came up with in the hours and days after Aurora involved carpet-bombing Washington with millions from the mayor’s immense fortune and a media blitz that would be deployed following the next massacre … The next time a tragedy like Aurora went down, he would be ready …”

This isn’t a surprise, but it does tell a lot about Bloomberg’s character.  Instead of trying to figure out about how to best prevent such mass killings, his main concern was how to exploit them in order to advance his political agenda.

Fred Dicker slams Cuomo spokesman

Fred Dicker rips into Gov. Cuomo’s secretary Larry Schwartz on his radio program yesterday.

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Trading votes?

Did Senator Tim Kennedy trade his antigun vote for promised economic support?

“… Kennedy said that he would never support an anti-gun bill, but, since then, he has done just that.  After 30 minutes of discussion, Kennedy’s assistant admitted, “WNY is in need of economic assistance.  That assistance needs to come from Albany and, sometimes, it is not possible to support all of the interests of all the constituents.”  Does that mean that Second Amendment rights have been traded for local economic support? …”

Good question.

More attacks upon SAFE

More attacks upon the SAFE Act, legislatively and administratively.

First, the legislative attack, “Budget Resolution Takes Aim At New York’s SAFE Act“:

Senate Republicans and their governing partners in the Independent Democratic Conference appear to be targeting New York’s new gun control measure with their one-house budget resolution … Specifically, the resolution would deny Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to provide $3.2 million in funding to the state police “for personal service and contractual services related to the implementation of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (NY SAFE).”  The resolution also seeks to strip $32.7 million in capital funding related to the development of a pistol permit database by the State University of New York …”

The Left often uses this strategy to attack programs it doesn’t like.  I’m not optimistic it will work here as I don’t think the Republicans have the balls to stand firm on the issue.

Second, the administrative attack, “VA won’t abide by reporting provisions of SAFE“:

“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said it will not comply with New York State’s new law requiring mental health providers to report potentially dangerous individuals to state authorities … Mark Ballesteros, spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said that the U.S. Constitution forces his agency to follow federal law, not New York’s new rules.  “Federal laws safeguarding the confidentiality of veterans’ treatment records do not authorize VA mental-health professionals to comply with this NY State law,” he said in an emailed statement …”

This is what happens when the authors of the bill (Cuomo’s office) don’t bother to do due diligence on the issue.  There is a reason for the requirement that bills “age” before they can be voted on, a requirement Cuomo got around by (mis)using a “message of necessity.”