All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
I was interviewed by a reporter for WNYC this morning. All they ran was this quote:
“… Jacob Rieper, vice president of legislative affairs for the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said any changes that go after guns or legal gun owners won’t work. “All of these ideas they’re based on the false premise that somehow guns are the problem. They’re not,” Rieper said. “You have to focus on personal behavior, on criminals especially on the mentally ill.” …”
Cuomo says microstamping is unlikely to pass.
— Capital Tonight (@CapitalTonight) January 2, 2013
The new bill is pre-filed as S-68 in the Senate. No Assembly companion yet.
The Journal News has decided to hired armed guards in response to the negative pushback the paper has received for publishing the pistol license list w/searchable map for Westchester and Rockland. According to the Rockland Times:
“… According to police reports on public record, Journal News Rockland Editor Caryn A. McBride was alarmed by the volume of “negative correspondence,” namely an avalanche of phone calls and emails to the Journal News office, following the newspaper’s publishing of a map of all pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester. Due to apparent safety concerns, the newspaper then decided to hire RGA Investigations to provide armed personnel to man the location … McBride had filed at least two reports with the Clarkstown Police Department due to perceived threats. However, the police did not find the communications in question actually threatening …”
In other words, guns are o.k. when used to protect elitist snobs at leftist rags like the Urinal News, but not ordinary citizens like those the paper decided to out.
Meanwhile, Putnam Co. is refusing to give the paper their pistol license list:
Proud to stand w Putnam Cnty Clerk, Dennis Sant. Putnam will not be releasing the permit records to the Urinal News. Standing up for right.
— Greg Ball (@ball4ny) January 1, 2013
NYSRPA and WCFOA are calling for a boycott of all Journal News advertisers in light of their decision to publish the list of pistol license holders with a searchable map.
UPDATE: Reuters – Gun groups seek boycott of newspaper that named permit-holders
S-1422 has been pre-filed for the 2013-14 session by Senator Diaz. It redefines an “assault weapon” to be any semi-auto or pump rifle which accepts detachable magazines and has one (down from two) evil features or any semi-auto shotgun which has one evil feature like a protruding pistol grip. The existing grandfather clause is deleted for 10+ round magazines.
DiFi has decided to go full retard with her all encompassing gun and magazine prohibition bill.
It will never go anywhere in Congress. What it will do is seriously piss people off and motivate more to join/donate to gun organizations which in turn further damages the gun control movement. I view it as a Hail Mary pass and a sign of panic from the antis that they are losing the gun control argument.
The Times Union is having another go with gun blogs with a new one, Guns, featuring Tom King (NYSRPA/NRA) and Robyn Ringler (NYAGV).
This probably won’t go well. Ringler used to have a blog their many years and is batshit nuts. I cannot see her tolerating any discussion which will likely be overwhelmingly dominated by pro-gunners.
Gun control has been a hot topic of late with big leftist media outlets like the New York Daily News and Journal News beating the drum just about every day for the last couple of weeks. The good news is, that’s pretty much it. I have not seen anything resembling a true groundswell of support among the people for the sort of laws being tossed back and forth by the antis and their media allies. Yes, we’re in for some fights ahead, mostly in Albany, but there are no new players on the game board.
Once again the Journal News has published the list of pistol license holders for the lower Hudson Valley. I’m not going to link to it.
Predictably, people are pissed. Under state law, this is public information so there isn’t anything that can be done about it. However, an inquisitive blogger has taken the time to research information about Journal News staff and posted it to his website. I’m sure they won’t mind.