Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Massive noncompliance with SAFE Act

From a couple of years back, but from what I've heard still the case. I hope this is still giving Gov. Howler & Co. severe heartburn.  And hemorrhoids.
In 2014, attorney and policy analyst Paloma Capanna filed suit on behalf of Rochester-based radio host Bill Robinson seeking data on NY SAFE Act compliance: specifically, how many assault weapons had actually been registered in the state.

Cuomo administration officials first ignored, then denied Robinson’s Freedom of Information Act request. But, on June 22, following two years of litigation, state police released the information based on a court decision which found that while the law forbade the disclosure of the actual registration forms, nothing precluded the release of aggregate data.

That data shows massive noncompliance with the assault weapon registration requirement. Based on an estimate from the National Shooting Sports Federation, about 1 million firearms in New York State meet the law’s assault-weapon criteria, but just 44,000 have been registered. That’s a compliance rate of about 4 percent. Capanna said that the high rate of noncompliance with the law could only be interpreted as a large-scale civil disobedience, given the high level of interest and concern about the law on the part of gun owners.
From what I've heard other states with such idiot laws have had the same or not much better results.  Good.

1 comment:

Francis W. Porretto said...

There's still a problem because of the law. NYers who own such "illegal" weapons can't take them to a public shooting range to practice with them. That has implications for their ultimate utility.