Celebrating tradegy

The antigunners are celebrating, yes celebrating, over the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Antis have never been known for their tact, but they’ve really gone overboard this time.  This is probably due to the long losing streak that they have been on, both in Congress and the courts.  Nobody has been paying them much attention.  The Brady’s have already sent out a fundraiser letter trying to make money off of it.  CSGV asserts on their Twitter feed the NRA and Antonin Scalia promote “insurrectionism” via the 2nd Amendment.

Of course, some local politicians have to make noise.  Carolyn McCarthy intends to reintroduce her bill to reinstate and expand the old Clinton AWB while Mayor Bloomberg pledged to continue his efforts (and hopefully divert attention away from his other problems.)

Ultimately, I don’t see the antis getting any traction on their issues.  The public doesn’t want it, the political support isn’t there and there is widespread alternative media to counter the PSH from lamestream outlets which was not there 10-15 years ago.  All their antics are going to do is further marginalize the already fringe antigun movement.

NRA Board candidates

The NRA Board is looking to add more people with a competitive shooting background.  An e-mail is making the rounds asking members to vote for 8 candidates.  I know incumbent Patrica Clark has some sort of sport shooting background.  Of the others, the only one I’ve heard of before is R. Lee Ermry.  I offer this up FYI-only.

Category: NRA

Aubertine picked

Gov. Cuomo has nominated Darrel Aubertine to be Agriculture Commissioner.

Aubertine had a solid pro-gun record while in both the Assembly and Senate, although that probably had nothing to do with this nomination.  Aubertine lost his re-election bid last November and was out of a job.

Martens for DEC

Gov. Cuomo has nominated Joe Martens to head the DEC.  The Post-Standard has some background information on him here.

I don’t know much about him, but I have not gotten a flood of complaints directed at him (yet.)

Microstamping reintroduced

The microstamping bill has been reintroduced in the State Senate as S-678 by Jose Peralta.  No companion in the Assembly yet.

Legislative Report #1

Legislative Report #1 is online with all the pre-filed bills available right now.  The session starts Wednesday with the Governor’s State of the State address.

GOP gun agenda

Newsmax reports on the Republican’s Congressional agenda:

“… Republicans promise to cut spending, roll back President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul and prevent unelected bureaucrats from expanding the government’s role in society through regulations that tell people what they must or can’t do …”

I don’t see where Republicans specifically spell out their intentions.  NRA has made it clear that their agenda for the new Congress includes nationwide CCW reciprocity.

Cuomo takes over

Andrew Cuomo has been sworn in as Governor.  Marvelous.

He has a proven track record as an antigunner going back to his time at HUD.  He didn’t make a big deal about guns during his campaign and I still believe Eric Schneiderman is going to be pointman on the issue.  We should know soon enough what the Governor is going to do.  Three things to look out for this month are:

  1. What he says during the State of the State address this Wednesday.
  2. Program bills, especially the state budget.
  3. Appointments, especially for the DEC.

With Schniederman, I know what he’s going to do: be a royal pain the in the ass and not just to New York gun owners.  I expect he’ll waste no time announcing all sorts of antigun initiatives at the state and national level.