Despite Cuomo, Spirit of ’76 Lives On at Anti-SAFE Act Rally

EDITORIAL BY CARL GOTTSTEIN JR.
(From Albany, NY-area)

We lost the battle, but the Spirit of 1776 is alive and well in upstate New York. 
It was a beautiful day for a revolution this past Friday, June 21 and Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin was a tough act to follow. But, when Assemblyman Stephen Katz took the microphone from Carl Paladino’s admiring hand, and climbed to the podium speaking words of freedom and truth, he kept the momentum rolling.

New Yorkers came to life as one, as Katz voiced the feelings of We The People. “Cuomo must GO!” I looked out over the massive, at times angry, crowd and I listened to Dr. Katz speak sacred words of truth as it hit me: the spirit uniting American Second Amendment supporters is not new and it is not going away.

On the contrary, it is growing stronger. I could feel it when he spoke. In a moment filled with a deep sense of purpose and patriotism, my eye caught Senator Kathy Marchione’s piles of signed petitions. Thousands and thousands of dissenting signatures demanding the repeal of NY’s SAFE Act. Well over a hundred thousand of them shouting for and demanding repeal!

They stood stacked high like proud soldiers waiting to be marched up and delivered into the breach! I only wish such a weak spot in Cuomo’s iron heart existed. For honor’s sake we would soon drive our declaration of rebellion straight into the belly of the beast to be digested by liberty’s self-admitted enemy: The feared and much-hated temporary governor of New York, Andrew “Knuckles” Cuomo.

Just days after receiving our demand to repeal the SAFE Act from Senator Kathy Marchione, and what amounted to a small patriot army, the governor, exhibiting a lack of respect, wisdom and discretion, cut a closed-door, back-room deal with Senator Dean Skelos, who then opened NY’s Senate floor for a vote on a bill that would divide Republican Senators upstate from downstate and create a separate, unequal class of citizens: the law enforcement officer class.

This was done under cloak of darkness yet again. In the middle of the night, while mockingly echoing the SAFE Act’s nefarious witching-hour birth, the senators voted to amend the SAFE Act law to grant immunity to law enforcement officers and retired LEOs from its unconstitutional restrictions.

The application of the law the law enforcement had been a fatal flaw/wedge issue that could have forced the governor to sign a total repeal of the act. Consider that opportunity now squandered. Why? You see our brothers and sisters in law enforcement, who have been among the most powerful SAFE Act critics within the system, are now above the law. Well-played governor. You created two separate and unequal classes of people.

It would seem the intent was to effectively divided LEOs from ‘We The People’ and save this junk law and some gubernatorial face. Fortunately LEOs are not easily manipulated, if they were, it would obviously undermine what it is to be a LEO. So, no thanks to our divisive, wild-eyed “master mind’ governor and his cohorts.

God blessed America a long time ago and the Spirit of 1776 is alive and well in New York. Carry on patriots!

Carl Gottstein Jr is a pro-free market, issue/solutions based grassroots conservative activist, an avid, daily microblogger and a newshound. Gottstein is the moderator of “Patriots Action Network” and a member of the Board of Directors, New York State Right to Life Committee.

  Anti-SAFE Act Rally, carl paladino, cuomo