by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
The national Gun Appreciation Day that swept the nation on Jan. 19 was transformed into angry protests in New York State. Thousands turned out to protest the new anti-gun law rushed into passage in the dark of night just four days earlier at the command of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The Albany Times Union reported that some 2,000 enraged men and women turned out for the rally in the Capitol, while TGM estimated the crowd at in front of the Buffalo City Hall, 285 miles further west, at between 1,500 and 2,000.
In both cities, speaker after speaker protested the Draconian new law that was passed simply because Cuomo had aspirations of being the Democrat’s nominee for president in 2016. It was said Cuomo wished to crow that he’d been the first in the nation to enact a new gun-control measure in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut on Dec. 14. In reporting the new law, so badly written that it might have failed to pass in California, The New York Times was quick to report on Cuomo’s singular leader leadership in forging new controls on firearms and ammunition.
New York State, like a half dozen other states including Connecticut, already had laws prohibiting semi-automatic firearms such as those prohibited by the 1994 federal law, as well as magazines over 10 rounds, and requiring background checks on private sales at gun shows. However, the new law expanded the existing ban, limited magazines to seven rounds, required background checks on all gun sales, includes muzzle-loaders as well as ammunition, made lifetime state pistol licenses expire every five years, and tweaked many other sections of the state Penal Code to make other, often conflicting, amendments to various sections.
Cuomo had even proposed confiscation of guns, but passed the law so quickly with significant Republican help in the state Senate, that the next action on guns in the legislature will be “tweaking” the law to resolve a number of problems. So badly written was the Cuomo gun coup, that police side arms and long guns were not exempted from the seven-round magazine prohibition.
The Gun Appreciation Day rallies and protests were not just organized by local and national pro-gun organizations and clubs, but by a variety of citizen groups that shared support the right to keep and bear arms. People of all ages turned out on an extremely cold and windy Saturday in the Empire State, most intent on sending a message to Emperor Cuomo, as well as President Obama.
The Buffalo rally was headed by Russ Thompson with the help of Joe Mesler and Nick Orticelli, and special support from several area businessmen. After an invocation by Pastor Rob Palaszewski from My Father’s House in Elma, NY, and the Pledge of Allegiance, Lenny Roberto, a 2010 congressional candidate and founder of Primary Challenge led the speakers. Others addressing the crowd included Stephen Aldstadt, president of the Shooter’s Committee on Political Education (SCOPE, Inc.), Assemblyman David DiPietro (147th Dist.), who opposed the Cuomo bill in the Legislature and circulated a petition for a repeal of the law, and 2010 Republication gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. Mark Croce, a real estate developer like Paladino, opened his Statler City across from the City Hall and provided refreshments for people contributing to a planned legal challenge of Cuomo’s law, as well as gathering petition signatures for the recall.
Two speakers on the agenda that really drew special crowd support were Pastor Palaszewski, who recounted his experience of being shot and severely wounded years previously as a teenager while working in a neighborhood city grocery store, and Ayesha Kreutz, head of The Frederick Douglass Foundation of NY, who stressed that gun control institutionalizes inequality, especially for the minority communities. Kreutz was accompanied by her daughter, Shalom, a second grader, who led the throng in the singing of God Bless America.
