Resistance to NY-SAFE continues, figures to be factor in gubernatorial election

BY DYLAN SKRILOFF

The movement to abolish Governor Andrew Cuomo’s NY SAFE Act- the controversial gun control measure pushed through the Legislature last January, under emergency protocol and thus without normal debate-continues apace and figures to play a role in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

Thousands of protesters showed up in downtown Albany on Tuesday, April 1 to register their dismay, yet again, at the law that criminalized their prized possessions and in their view transgressed their Constitutional liberties; their God-given rights.

Cuomo’s likely GOP adversary Rob Astorino, county executive of Westchester, showed up at the protest and had encouraging words for crowd. “There is nothing about the SAFE Act that makes us safer,” Astorino said, according to a recent Human Events article.

Astorino said the reason that Cuomo’s anti-gun law garners such stiff resistance is “it’s an issue that deals with individual rights and cuts across the political spectrum.”

At April 1’s rally event organizers estimated over 10,000 attendees while state police said only 3,000 attended. The SAFE Act outlawed a myriad number of guns and gun accessories, and limited magazine rounds to seven bullets until that part of the law was deemed arbitrary and thrown out in court.

While prognosticators and political seers of various stripes continue to predict Cuomo will have an easy time defeating Astorino, the second-term Westchester exec has been handed a base of angered, motivated supporters amongst the gun-owning public. Could it be that these men and women give Astorino the starting push needed to mount a charge against the anti-gun governor?

Only time will tell.

With thousands of protesters continuing to show up to protest Cuomo’s gun bill and nary a day going by without the governor hearing from angered gun owners, it is debatable whether the governor knew the political ramifications of pushing the NY-SAFE Act through hastily in an attempt to be the first to pass gun control after the Newtown, CT tragedy.