NY GOP arm-twists Cuomo: SAFE Act’s background checks on ammo sales SUSPENDED

NY GOP arm-twists Cuomo: SAFE Act’s background checks on ammo sales SUSPENDED

The SAFE Act has met with its share of embarrassments and epic fails in the last couple of years.  One of its main sponsors was sentenced to 7 years in prison last week for criminal violations of election laws.  An anti-gun group making a video touting the SAFE Act’s provisions violated the SAFE Act in the process.  The SAFE Act has driven businesses and jobs out of New York.  And murders and shooting deaths are up in New York City since the SAFE Act was signed in 2013.

So the quiet suspension this week of the Act’s requirement for background checks on ammo buyers can probably be chalked up as yet another “fail” for a much-troubled law.

As reported by the New York Times:

The administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo agreed on Friday to suspend a plan to require background checks on ammunition sales, putting in doubt part of the gun control law that he considers one of his proudest legacies.

The decision, which the administration did not publicize, was the result of an unusual deal the governor’s office reached with the State Senate’s Republican majority. The Senate’s Democratic minority and the speaker of the State Assembly condemned the move.

The background-check system was approved as part of the Safe Act, the set of tough gun control measures that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, persuaded lawmakers to pass in January 2013, shortly after the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The act was a signature accomplishment of the governor’s first term, and one that he has frequently spoken of with pride, making the move on Friday particularly surprising.

“Just controlling guns isn’t enough,” Mr. Cuomo said in a speech in 2013, while discussing the ammunition background checks.

FULL STORY CONTINUES HERE

LU Staff

LU Staff

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