It appears that Dean Skelos is going to get booted as Senate Majority Leader before the legislature goes into recess. His likely replacement is Tom Libous. From a RKBA standpoint, Libous is much more pro-gun than Skelos so this should not affect microstamping and other legislation.
Defining moment for Scaturro
Frank Scaturro is planning on making another run against Carolyn McCarthy next year. The New Hyde Park Patch has this interesting tidbit in a story about his campaign kickoff:
“… One of McCarthy’s big issues has been gun safety. Scaturro believes in the constitutional right to bear arms and that people have the right to have something for their self defense. He understands though that the general public doesn’t need machine guns that could cause a lot of damage and is sensitive to gun safety after having been robbed at gunpoint recently …”
I don’t know if this comes from direct quote from his campaign or just the editor writing their interpretation of his position, but this statement is pure BS.
Historically, McCarthy’s opponents have been cannon fodder who didn’t put much effort into their campaigns. On guns, they were either as bad as McCarthy herself or nearly so and all did their best to avoid the issue. This makes sense to a degree as McCarthy is a single issue candidate and owns the antigun position. Now with Scaturro himself being a victim of violent crime I don’t see how he can avoid dealing with the RKBA directly. He’s either going to have to publicly come out 100% gun rights or 100% gun bigot.
Still there
Records check update
It is my understanding that the NYS Health Department has hired 2-3 people to process the backlog of records checks for pistol license applicants. I don’t have a number, but it has to be in the thousands of applications going back to at least March.
HR-822 update
Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle (R-25) signed on as co-sponsor to the national reciprocity bill HR-822. It now has 236 co-sponsors. Other local co-sponsors include Chris Gibson (R-20), Richard Hanna (R-24), Bill Owens (D-23) and Tom Reed (R-29).
Legislative Report #11, End of Session alert
Legislative Report #11 is now online.
The legislature is scheduled to go into recess on Monday, but may go long. We need calls to the Senate on both the microstamping bill S-675A and a domestic violence bill S-4244C which contains some very bad language which could affect gun owners involved in such cases as it specifically allows determinations to be made based on hearsay.
Grassroots v. astroturf
CSGV published a link on their FaceBook group to a story on gay marriage which contains quotes from Senator Roy McDonald where he says he’s trying to do the right thing on the issue and not play politics.
The problem (for the antis) is that unlike supporters of so-called gay marriage, the antigunners don’t actually have any sort of organized grassroots constituency as evidenced by the fact they can not get any people to show up in Albany to lobby for their cause and have to resort to bringing a couple of bus loads of high schools kids up from NYC. Below is a picture of their group in The Well of the LOB during their lobby day back in April.
This is lack of public support is why the antis are having ever increasing difficulty in moving their agenda through the state legislature.
Jenkins sentenced
Monticello Mayor Gordon Jenkins has been sentenced for selling counterfeit sneakers. He gets a conditional discharge and several thousand dollars in fines.
He is still listed a being a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns in good standing.
Exploiting Giffords
The antis have been trying for some time to exploit the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. With the release of her first post-shooting portrait, the antis have gone all out hoping to score cheap political points. Ladd Everitt of CSGV really turned the BS meter up to 11 with this Tweet:
“Her smile is as beautiful as ever.”
Absolutely shameless. If CSGV, Brady, etc. really cared about Giffords then why didn’t they endorse her all those times she was running for re-election? Where was all their compassion and concern for her before she became a fundraising tool for them?
Microstamping point/counterpoint
An op-ed by Mayor Bloomberg and AG Eric Schneiderman appears in todays Daily News, “Microstamping saves lives: Senate must resist gun lobby and pass crime-fighting bill“:
“… This should be an easy vote. Instead, however, lobbyists for the gun industry work the halls of Albany, making specious arguments driven more by a kneejerk opposition to any gun-related legislation rather than by their desire to protect legal gun ownership …”
If it is such an easy vote then why did Shelly have so much trouble getting it to the floor in the Assembly? He’s been losing votes every time it comes up. He had to strong arm his caucus this time to get 77 Yeas and didn’t even hold the NYC Democrats together.
Meanwhile on the other end of the state, the Niagara Co. Legislature went on the record opposing microstamping.
Bloomberg is just upset that he hasn’t been able to B.S. and bully his way through the legislature on his pet issue.