New York State Police officials fought long and hard to block access to the raw numbers of gun registrations under the new “SAFE Act”, promoted and signed by the rabidly anti-gun NY Governor Andrew Cuomo. Why were state officials so opposed to releasing the information?
Release of the data would show the politically embarrassing truth: 99% of the state’s gun owners ignored the new edict.
At last though, the courts finally tired of Governor Cuomo’s lame excuses for keeping the information “top secret” and ordered its release. After all, it’s just numbers.
In the entire state of nearly 20 million people, less than 24,000 gun owners registered a total of just shy of 45,000 guns.
Illinois, hardly a pro-gun state, has 13 million million people and roughly 1.8 million registered gun owners. Extrapolating those numbers to New York State (they have no gun owner registration, after all), that means New York State probably has at least 2.7 million gun owners.
The AR-15 is America’s favorite rifle based upon sales numbers and the entire industry built around parts and accessories for the popular rifle, so it stands to reason a large number – maybe even as many as a quarter of gun owners own at least one AR-pattern rifle.
Even if only 10% of gun owners have at least one, that’s still 270,000 AR-15 owners… and there are hundreds of guns on the “SAFE Act” list of scary guns that must be registered. The new law passed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook mass murder by a mentally deranged lunatic.
Suffice it to say that probably at least half of New York State’s gun owners owned at least one gun that would require registration.
Of them, only 24,000 people bothered to submit registration forms.
24,000.
That’s not even 1% of gun owners in that state.
Here’s the story, including how the state stonewalled multiple requests for the politically embarrassing data.
New York SAFE Act gun registration numbers are released
Albany (Times-Union) – Since New York’s SAFE Act gun control law went into effect in January 2013, a total of 23,847 people have applied to register their newly defined assault-style weapons with the State Police.
Those individuals have registered a total of 44,485 weapons.
The statistics, hidden from the public for more than a year by state officials, were given to Rochester-area lawyer Paloma Capanna on Monday in response to a lawsuit she filed on behalf of radio host Bill Robinson.
The data had been withheld by the State Police despite a flurry of requests — from members of the media as well as citizens — under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. In its rejections, the state pointed to language in the law that made the contents of the registration database exempt from public disclosure.
Robinson’s request under the law was submitted in January 2014, and prompted the standard response letter from a State Police Records Access Officer noting its receipt and promising another response within 20 days.
But then the office fell silent, ignoring two letters from Robinson sent in April and June. In July, he filed an appeal based on the contention that the state’s non-response was a denial. A Supreme Court justice agreed, ruling that while the direct contents of the database was exempt, there was no reason to withhold data derived from that source material as long as it didn’t violate the privacy provisions in the law.
How dare they not bow to Little Napoleon.
Those who possess guns illegally cannot be required to register them as that would violate their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. So instead the gun grabbers come after the law-abiding gun owners and threaten them with criminal sanctions if they don’t register their guns.
Ladies and Gentlemen, ask yourself just whose side are they on?
To answer your question, JAS; the very same people who champion the release of cop killers and drug dealers while calling for a ten year sentence for a retired teacher with a 300 year old pistol in his glovebox.