Free Republic

An upstate New York lawmaker said the loss of manufacturing jobs in the state last month is due to an anti-gun administration that has ignored pleas from local officials to be involved in the negotiating process. “Remington talks have come to a halt,” said Assemblyman Marc W. Butler (R.-Newport), whose district includes the Village of Ilion, where the Remington Outdoor Company has been located for almost 200 years. “We are losing 105 jobs at the Ilion primary plant,” said Butler. In February he predicted long-term consequences of Remington’s decision to expand to Huntsville, Ala., instead of Ilion, N.Y. The small...

A SWAT team raided co-owner Joe Palumbo's Albion Gun Shop without a warrant. They were acting on orders from the Narcotics Enforcement Unit, who asked the shop to hand over a customer list so they could determine how many people had purchased New York SAFE Act compliant rifles. The gun owner was forced to present approximately 170 sales records. Under the state's anti-gun law, this intrusion was completely legal.

A NY SAFE Act investigation has begun at a business in a neighboring county. The Albion Gun Shop, located on Hamilton St. in the Town of Albion in Orleans County, has received a "request" from the New York State Police for records of all persons who have purchased a bullet button AR-15 from the store since the SAFE Act was passed and signed into law in January of 2013, A bullet button AR-15 is a rifle that has been modified with a special feature that makes a semiautomatic rifle's magazine permanent, or not detachable without a special tool. The...

ILION — Herkimer County officials vowed to help affected Remington Arms employees Monday afternoon as news spread the gun manufacturer will layoff more than 100 of its employees by the end of the week. Herkimer County Legislature Chairman Vincent Bono said he learned about the 105 layoffs through county Administrator James Wallace and then from Karin Zipko of Herkimer County Working Solutions. “We're gearing up our programs that are offered, including retraining and job searches,” said Bono, R-Schuyler, during a telephone interview Monday. “It's unclear whether some will be called back. That's unknown.” “It's unfortunate,” added Bono about the layoffs,...

GOP Lawmakers Say They’re Furious After Discovering What Was ‘Hidden’ Inside Budget They Voted For May. 6, 2014 6:15pm Jason Howerton That’s the lesson GOP lawmakers in New York reportedly learned after they voted in favor of a proposed state budget that includes millions of dollars in funding for the state’s hastily-passed gun control law known as the SAFE Act. Hidden in the budget is a provision that permits the reappropriation of $28 million to fund a gun database and $3.2 million in new funding for SAFE Act “staff,” the New York Post reports. One GOP senator, who asked to...

<p>ALBANY — A “mass exodus” is expected from the Cuomo administration after November’s election, according to several sources.</p> <p>“They all want out,” one source said of top Cuomo staffers. A former staffer said the rush has been spurred by the work environment.</p>

This year April 15 is more than the tax deadline for an estimated one million New York State residents. It’s also the deadline to register “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines. If they don’t, they’ll begin living outside the law. A lot of them have decided to do just that. They’ve decided to practice civil disobedience even though failure to register an “assault weapon” by the deadline is punishable as a “class A misdemeanor,” which means a maximum sentence of one year in prison. I put “assault weapon” and “high-capacity” in quotes because their definitions vary by state—they’re political terms. In...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Tuesday is the next -- and last -- big deadline within the NY Safe Act, and many gun owners plan to defy it by not registering their guns under the state's new definition of assault weapons. One columnist in Forbes writes as many as 1 million gun owners in New York will not register their guns as assault weapons.

In 2011, Kansas passed the SAFE Act — Safe and Fair Elections — which requires voter ID, proof of citizenship and signature verification. In other words, it’s designed to make sure that all votes cast in Kansas are cast legally by the person identified as the voter. The law was to go into effect January 1, 2013. But the Obama administration stood in the way. At issue are the forms states use to register voters for federal elections. Kansas and Arizona require proof of citizenship, while the federal government’s form — incredibly — does not. The federal government attempted to...

The pastor of a Lansingburgh Baptist church plans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday service. A provocative flier he distributed rallied supporters of gun rights and stirred controversy among anti-gun advocates and some who considered it un-Christian. The Rev. John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, said the service and gun raffle are aimed at "honoring hunters and gun owners who have been so viciously attacked by the antichristian socialist media and antichristian socialist politicians the last few years," according to a letter he posted on the church...

A forthcoming study is challenging claims, repeated over and over in the media, that federal restrictions effectively froze gun research over the last two decades. The Crime Prevention Research Center study examined how a 1996 decision by Congress to strip funding for firearms research actually impacted the world of academia. To hear national media outlets tell it, the decision led to a drought in research from 1996 to 2013 -- when such funding was once again allowed. Stories from The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters and other outlets all have claimed that Washington, with the backing of the National Rifle...

LOCKPORT – Lockport police violated Paul A. Wojdan’s constitutional rights by counting the bullets in his gun and charging him with violating New York’s SAFE Act, Lockport City Judge William J. Watson ruled Wednesday. Watson dismissed a misdemeanor charge against Wojdan, filed because the magazine of his 9 mm Ruger handgun contained 10 bullets, more than the limit of seven bullets per magazine under the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act. On Dec. 31, 2½ months after Wojdan’s Oct. 12 arrest, Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny ruled that the seven-bullet rule was unconstitutional, the only portion of the...

Remington Arms announced last week that it will open a large manufacturing plant in Alabama. It will create 2,000 jobs for the southern state. While I don’t begrudge another state from securing these high-paying manufacturing jobs, I do begrudge our own leaders for forcing the “SAFE Act” upon its people and hindering economic development right here in New York. Its passage has undoubtedly affected Remington Arms, located in Illion, NY, for more than a century, from expanding in its home state. The SAFE Act makes gun owners and gun manufacturers feel unwelcome, plain and simple. I voted against the SAFE...

Police officers went too far when they counted the bullets in Paul A. Wojdan's gun, City Judge William J. Watson ruled Wednesday as he dismissed the charge against Wojdan for violating New York's SAFE Act. Watson threw out the misdemeanor charge against Wojdan, which was filed because the magazine of his Ruger 9 mm pistol contained 10 bullets. That exceeds the SAFE Act’s restriction of seven bullets in a magazine. Now, Wojdan wants all six of his firearms back. . . . . Wojdan was a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over by Lockport Police for speeding on...

In NY State, this mom would be a criminal and facing jail time because of cosmetic features on the rifle.I saw the videotape below at Ace of Spades HQ, as well as at Hot Air, regarding a Detroit mother at home with her children when three men, at least one of whom was armed with a handgun, attempted to kick open the front back door. Fearing for her safety and that of her children, this mother used a rifle in self-defense. She didn’t hit any of the intruders, but it was enough to scare them off initially, and again when...

The Cuomo administration has a serious, potentially deadly laser pointer shortage. That's the only way to explain a report from the Albany Times-Union that Jerome Hauer, the state's commissioner of Homeland Security & Emergency Services, used the the laser sight on his handgun as a pointer during a presentation in October, panicking a bunch of foreign delegates from countries where guns are only used for civilized things like shooting people.

Ilion, N.Y. — A union official said Saturday the Remington Arms Co.'s decision to open a manufacturing plant in Alabama does not bode well for Ilion, and he's blaming New York's Safe Act restrictions on assault weapons. "It can't be good," said Fran Madore, president of United Mine Workers Local 717, which represents 1,180 of the 1,300 Remington employees in Ilion. "How can it be good?" Madore said plant officials told him they wanted to meet with him on Monday. They did not say what they wanted to talk about, but Madore said he assumes it will be about the...

A Buffalo, N.Y. community activist who is well known locally for pushing for a highly restrictive 2013 gun control law has been arrested for — wait for it — carrying a gun illegally at a public elementary school.

Dwayne Ferguson spent more than a decade advocating for nonviolence and peace in the streets of Buffalo. He was a well-known face in the movement for the SAFE Act, the state law that made carrying a gun on school property a felony. He was also a familiar presence in the hallways of the city’s Harvey Austin Elementary School, where he worked in the after-school program and mentored students. No one imagined that on Thursday he would show up at the school in possession of a gun, touching off an hours-long lockdown, search and ultimately his arrest on two felony charges....

Dwayne Ferguson, who has spent several decades promoting non-violence and is the leader of the anti-violence organization Mad Dads, was arrested Thursday for bringing a loaded gun to a school. According to police, Mr. Ferguson brought a loaded handgun to Harvey Austin Elementary school on Thursday, prompting a multi-hour lockdown... According to Mr. Ferguson, who spoke to the press, he stated that he simply “did not realize” that he brought a loaded weapon into a school full of children. Mr. Ferguson, a member of Mad Dads, has been very vocal about New York’s SAFE Act, of which he is a...