NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO'S ONGOING WAR ON GUN OWNERS & THE SECOND AMENDMENT
BY DAVID LAPELL
SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2018/06/cuomo-war-gun-owners-second-amendment/#axzz5JB2EdvRo; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Few politicians in this country seem to be as hell-bent on stripping away the rights of gun owners as the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo is.
Hardly a week goes by without a new proposal or law being conceived by his office or someone close to him that further proves that gun owners in that state are viewed at as the enemy and that the Second Amendment in his mind is outdated and needs a serious overhaul. Even in an election year, when most politicians are wary of proposing legislation that could be seen as anti-gun, Cuomo has taken more of a “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” attitude as he sees himself as invincible and incapable of losing. It’s also quite apparent to many that the son of progressive Mario Cuomo has desires that take him to the White House and his name is among many as a Democrat Party contender for 2020.
Andrew Cuomo is no rookie in his desire to pass gun control. As the HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton, Cuomo made several speeches where his willingness to pass legislation came directly to the forefront. In a Press Conference he made on February 16, 2000, for the very anti-gun Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, Cuomo put it very plainly
“Pass the gun control laws, put the safety devices on guns that will reduce the number of tragedies.”
Later that same year, on June 20, Cuomo gave a speech to Handgun Control, Inc. on not only gun owners and gun control, but it showed his hatred even then for both as well as the NRA. Cuomo stated when discussing how to pass gun legislation and convince gun owners on new laws
“But we can have a safer gun. We can keep guns away from children. We can keep guns away from criminals. We can have a safer distribution network. And the sun will still rise in the morning for the bona fide sportsman and the bona fide hunters.”
Fast forward to 2007 when Andrew Cuomo became Attorney General to the State of New York, and there were many who speculated even then of his political aspirations. Soon enough it was announced he was running for Governor, but he toned down his anti-gun rhetoric, to the point that many gun owners in the state were convinced he had no interest in passing future legislation. That Trojan horse had been tried and used successfully in New York by Kirsten Gillibrand who was elected to Congress with an A+ rating from the NRA but quickly turned on gun owners once she was sworn in. Cuomo though had a proven anti-gun track record but still was voted in and became Governor on January 1, 2011.
Since he was sworn in, Andrew Cuomo has targeted gun owners with a particular venom that few other states have ever seen. Following the school shooting in Newtown, Cuomo rushed to pass the strictest gun laws in the country, leading the charge with his infamous “You don’t need ten bullets to kill a deer speech.” In the dead of night, and sadly with the help of some Republicans, New York passed what became known as The Safe Act, which has grown into a convoluted mess of gun laws that instantly made millions of gun owners criminals overnight.
Cuomo quickly made his thoughts known about gun owners and their rights when he mentioned that if possible, he would have no qualms about taking their guns made illegal by the Safe Act. He stated in a radio interview that
“Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option.”
In the end, gun owners who owned what was once deemed acceptable had to register them with the state, yet many refused, the compliance rate to this day is no more than thirty percent. Magazines over ten rounds were outlawed and had to be turned in or sold to states where they were legal. If you got caught with one, jail time was certain. Gun owners can no longer order ammunition to be delivered to their home, and the last proposal, the background check on all ammunition purchases has languished as the system has never been able to be successfully implemented, and as of now remains quietly on hold.
Since the Safe Act, there has been a steady stream of gun laws proposed, and the small minority of Republicans holding the line in the state Senate have been stopping most of them from becoming law. Some have made it through, and when they don’t, Cuomo vents his anger at conservatives.
In January 2014 Cuomo slammed conservative New Yorkers who he saw as a threat to his agenda, and his views of how New York should be governed. He stated that conservatives who don’t tow the line needed to or else.
“Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”
With Andrew Cuomo, it’s his way or the highway, and he would like instead you leave HIS state then speak out and oppose what he wants for it, and that vision is gun owners with no rights whatsoever.
Lately, the Governor has been taking his frustrations out on the NRA and gun owners again ever since the Parkland shooting. Since then he has advocated raising the minimum age to buy a gun to 21, he is opposed to arming not only teachers but putting armed law enforcement officers in schools even though he and the rest of the legislators in Albany enjoy the protection of armed guards. Several county sheriffs who have defied Cuomo in the past over their disapproval of the Safe Act are now working with school boards to put cops in schools even though no funding will ever be forthcoming from the state of New York for it.
Recently, Andrew Cuomo introduced one of the most Draconian gun control proposals ever conceived, another “first” for the nation, remove the guns from the home of troubled students, even if the parents are law-abiding and have done absolutely nothing wrong. That’s right; the new law would give teachers and school administrators the legal standing to petition a court to have the guns confiscated from a home if the kid showed signs of being a danger to themselves or others, with not even an arrest or conviction of the parent or legal guardian.
Cuomo stated that this new law would be a sensible alternative to arming teachers or placing law enforcement officers in schools.
One might ask why gun owners and New Yorkers have not voted out the man who has fast become known as “King Andy”?
It’s not that simple, despite that fact that in the last Gubernatorial election Cuomo won fourteen out of the state’s sixty-two counties and that outside of New York City, the challenger Rob Astorino won the election by 1% of the vote. New York state has long been run NOT by Albany which is the supposed capital, but by the ever rotten and wildly liberal mecca just across the river from New Jersey. Forty percent of the state lives in New York City, and they have been voting Democrat for decades, despite the continuing decline of both that metropolis and the state as a whole.
This election needs to be different. Not just for gun owners in the state of New York, who are only a couple of state Senate seats away from seeing their rights stripped and pilfered by politicians who legitimately hate them.
Gun owners in New York are treated as hicks and rubes who are responsible for all of the crime that takes place statewide and the NRA as an extremist group, being recently called that by Andrew Cuomo himself, who has apparent ambitions for the 2020 Presidential election. Imagine a Congress controlled by the Democrats with a man like Andrew Cuomo at the helm. Gun rights would become a thing of the past, even if the laws pushed through were illegal or unconstitutional, it would take years before they got to the Supreme Court to be challenged.
Gun owners and all New Yorkers MUST get involved; they MUST get out and vote in November and show that they are tired of being treated like subjects and not citizens. Cuomo’s opponent, Marc Molinaro has voiced his support for gun owners, and they must get behind him if they want to keep the rights they have, and in the end, they can win if they get mobilized. If not, then they have no one but themselves to blame, but by defeating King Andy now, it will also send a message that if he can’t keep his own state, he has no chance to win the White House. In the end, though, New York State, one of the birthplaces of freedom and liberty during the American Revolution may have this very last chance to save some of it for the people who live there.
- https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/andrew-cuomo-gun-control-protest-participates-die-in/
- https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2018/02/23/cuomo-calls-out-national-democrats-gun-control/366833002/
- https://archives.hud.gov/remarks/cuomo/speeches/handguncontrl.cfm
- https://archives.hud.gov/remarks/cuomo/speeches/gunsinph.cfm
- https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/nyregion/cuomo-planning-role-in-national-gun-control-campaign.html
- https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/status/987359763825614848
- https://www.mediaite.com/online/new-york-gov-andrew-cuomo-on-gun-control-confiscation-could-be-an-option/
- http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/09/cuomos-state-of-the-state-to-include-gun-control/
- https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-nra-not-going-win-day-people-united-states-are-going-win-day
About David LaPell
David LaPell has been a Corrections Officer with the local Sheriff's Department for thirteen years. A collector of antique and vintage firearms for over twenty years and an avid hunter. David has been writing articles about firearms, hunting and western history for ten years. In addition to having a passion for vintage guns, he is also a fan of old trucks and has written articles on those as well.