New York State Sen. Jim Seward (R-Milford) and Assemblyman Anthony Brandisi (D-Utica) are sponsoring legislation that is aimed at repealing and amending the controversial NY SAFE Act enacted two years ago.
Seward, in a recent media statement, acknowledged that winning passage of the package of four bills will be “a difficult fight” because of what he called New York’s “political landscape.” He was most likely referring to the numerical dominance in the legislature of New York City interests, which have been historically anti-gun as well as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s support for the SAFE Act.
To repeal or significantly amend the law would require that the measures co-authored by Seward and Brandisi would require that that the bills be approved by the Assembly as well as the Senate, where Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau County), voted for the 2013 law.
Cuomo has maintained the law has helped protect New Yorkers from gun crimes. But many county sheriffs have criticized the statute as an encroachment on the rights of law-abiding gunowners.
According to the Watertown Daily Times, Seward, who voted against the SAFE Act, said though he favors the full repeal of the law, he is also “working to chip away at several of the law’s worst features.”
The Seward-Brandisi package aims to accomplish the following:
- Amend the NY-SAFE Act to again allow for the gifting of long guns to close relatives and to holders of valid state pistol licenses;
- Repeal the provision struck down in federal court which limits the number of legally permissible cartridges in a 10-round magazine to seven;
- Terminate an “overly burdensome” state program requiring all ammunition retailers register with the state and conduct background checks on all customers. The bill also redirects state funding allocated to this program to public school districts to assist in the hiring of school resource officers.
- Prohibit county judges and other licensing officers from imposing “extraneous restrictions that go above and beyond state law” when issuing pistol and handgun licenses.
Two years after passage of SAFE Act, state officials still have no immediate plans to implement a background check on ammunition sales, the superintendent of New York State Police said recently.
“Nothing is in place,” State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico told lawmakers in Albany at a recent budget hearing.
The state has registered all dealers selling ammunition in New York, as required by the Safe Act, D’Amico said, but creating a point-of-purchase background check system that doesn’t cause delays for dealers or buyers has proved challenging.
The SAFE Act required the ammo background check provision to take effect Jan. 1, 2015, but the State Police have not yet come up with any workable system.
