NY STATE NEWS

NYSCC ALERT

Orange County Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs takes bus to Albany for MARCH ON ALBANY

NY Assembly passes annual anti-gun regulations

NYC Council passes anti-NRA resolution

Female Bonding, Punctuated by Gunfire

The Folly of Gun Control, By PATRICK W. BROPHY

NATIONAL NEWS

Handgun Control, (aka Brady Campaign,) sues ATF for allowing gun makers to make replacement parts for pre-ban guns.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act BILL IS DEFEATED AFTER ANTI-GUNNERS ADD AWB RENEWAL AND OTHER AMENDMENTS

Beckett lends name to NRA

Eric Berwanger passes on 3/3/04

     Eric Berwanger passed away on 3/3/04 of a suspected heart attack. He was 53 years old. Eric was a regular caller on many of the local radio shows and occasionally on WABC in NYC. He was very active in supporting our 2nd amendment rights and he will be missed by many. Please take a few moments to send a letter to his parents at:

Pin match at Master Class

     It was standing room only at Master Class in Monroe on Sunday the 14th for a pin match. Everyone had a great time.

Alice was scoring

Dennis was blowing the horn

Pin heads for 22 Cal.

The women were shooting too!

All of the pins set up.

You shoot them, you reset them

It was standing room only.

No matter how bad you shoot, you can always score at the food table.

Gander Mountain sneak preview Report.

Friends of the NRA Dinner, March 6th, biggest ever
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

As soon as last years Friends of the NRA Dinner was over plans were being made for this years dinner. This years dinner will be held on March 6th at Kholl's Highland House in Middletown. Several grants will be awarded to local clubs and groups The Hudson Valley dinner is one of thousands of dinners held across the county in support of the NRA Foundation.
      Established in 1990, The NRA Foundation, Inc. ("NRA Foundation") is a501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that raises tax-deductible contributions in support of a wide range of firearm-related public interest activities of the National Rifle Association of America and other organizations that defend and foster the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans. These activities are designed to promote firearms and hunting safety, to enhance marksmanship skills of those participating in the shooting sports, and to educate the general public about firearms in their historic, technological and artistic context. Funds granted by The NRA Foundation benefit a variety of constituencies throughout the United States including children, youth, women, individuals with physical disabilities, gun collectors, law enforcement officers, and hunters.

AFTER DINNER UPDATE

    Everyone had a good time at this years dinner and it was the most well attended in years with over 230 people attending. Over $10,000 was raised and over $6,000 worth of grants were given out to 3 local clubs. A special thinks to all of those who attended and all of those who donated items and lets not forget those who spent their time to put it together. Gander Mountain was kind enough to donate a $10 gift certificate to everyone who attended or over $2,000.

I was lucky enough to win a Beretta shotgun in 12 g.

We had lots of guns to give away! The WALL OF GUNS win a raffle, pick a gun

Carmen won the first gun of the night, you had to be a sponsor of the dinner to enter.

We had plenty of food.

The ladies also got to win and this was the winner of the "Gun of the Year"

Plenty of political people showed up like Rep. Sue Kelly and NY Sen. Bill Larkin.

The Orange County Chapter of SCOPE was well represented and Pres. Mike Kubow won a rifle and he and his wife's bid won a duck at the auction.

Middletown Pistol and Rifle Club was awarded a large grant for it's Junior Program. Several other local programs were also awarded grants totaling over $6,000

NYSCC ALERT

March 24, 2004
The following bill passed the SENATE on 3/23/04 it now goes to the Assembly EnCon committee. Assembly EnCon Committee Chair is Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli 625 LOB Albany, NY 12248 518-455-5192 and Fax 518-455-5192. Last year the bill passed the Senate also and stayed in the Assembly EnCon Committee.

8 S 930-A MAZIARZ Same as A 1099-A Smith (MS) ...Reduces the required minimum age for obtaining a junior archery license

NOTE THAT OUR OWN SEN. MORAHAN VOTED AGAINST THIS BILL.
ONE OF 11 IN THE SENATE.

Orange County Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs takes bus to Albany for
MARCH ON ALBANY

     Everyone had a good time on the trip to Albany this year as part of the NYSCC's annual MARCH ON ALBANY. The Orange County Federation with help from the Orange County Chapter of SCOPE provided a bus and free food and the bus was almost full with 44 people, including some non-OCFSC club member, attending but we did have a few no-shows. We were able to meet with almost all of our state representatives from Orange County except Sen. Bonacic who had to send a representative, Assembly Member Kirwin who whimped out with pneumonia and Assembly Member Mills who is tied up with his run against Sen. UpChuck Schumer. This was our first meeting with our newest Assembly Member, Aileen Gunther and everyone was very impress with her. It started snowing while we were in Albany but it did not cause any problems on the way back. We did stop on the way back for a nice lunch that everyone enjoyed especially since the tab was picked up.

The bus was almost full

Someone has been on most of the trips starting back when they used a covered wagon.

NYSCC Cayuga County members Noga Blueshir, left, and Wayne Radley give a packet of information to Fran Mitchell from Columbia County

Everyone enjoyed the meeting we had with Aileen Gunther.

Nancy Calhoun is always willing to meet with us

Sen. Morahan's excuses why no gun laws should come before the NY Senate was not well received but his announcement that Pataki's gun tax and re-certification plan was out of the budget talks brought applause.

FREE FOOD

It is important that we have as many people as possible to go on these trips. We hope that you will be able to go next year. Thanks to those people who went, especially those who took a day off from work to attend.

NY Assembly passes annual anti-gun regulations
Sheldon Silver's Press Conference Announcing Gun Control Legislative Package

     Every year the NY Assembly has one day where it passes what can be described as a dream list of new gun laws to save us from ourselves. This year it was held on March 15th and all of the regulars were in attendance; New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Million Mom March, Capital District Crime Victims' Coalition and the New York State Parents of Murdered Children, New York State League of Women Voters, Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany; and Executive Director of Statewide Youth Advocacy. (Why was the NY League of Women Voters there?)

• A7039 Bans 50 Cal.or larger center fire guns and sets up a program where current owners can turn their guns in and get paid a "FAIR MARKET VALUE"
• A.8542 - would expansion CoBIS (Combined Ballistic Identification System) to to include all rifles and shotguns and fired bullets from any non-semiautomatic gun.
• A.8456 -would give the Superintendent of the State Police vast powers to create new rules to try to prevent "Straw Purchasers"; would require dealers to have $1,000,000 or more against liability caused by damages as a result of the dealers sale of firearms; and would require reporting by dealers to the state of every ATF Trace. Among other changes it would ban anyone under 18 from being allowed to enter an area where guns were being sold unless with and adult.
• A.4615 - save our children and lock up your guns law. This bill was first introduced in 1993 and has passed every year. This bill contains the wording used in criminal law that defines a "Loaded" gun as a gun that is unloaded but you have the ammo, allows you to be arrested if your child uses one of your guns to defend him/herself and an education provision to teach children that guns are bad.
• A06820 Requires the judge in a criminal proceeding or in a family court proceeding, upon issuance of an order of protection to inquire as to the possession of a firearm by the defendant
• A04428 Eliminates the relief granted by a certificate of good conduct or relief from disabilities for persons convicted of an A-I or violent felony for gun purposes (Passed with 100% of the vote.)
• A3311 "Child Proof" your firearm by requiring a 10lb + trigger pull, making the gun so the average 5 year old child's hands are too small to operate the gun or require a series of multiple motions in order to fire the gun. (This will really increase your score at gun competitions.)

NYC Council passes anti-NRA resolution

from Jacob J. Rieper, Legislative Director, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association
     Councilwoman Brewer's resolution calling upon the "Republican National Committee to repudiate the irresponsible and dangerous policies of the National Rifle Association", RES 11-2004A, passed this week on a voice vote. Council members Avella, Gallagher, Gennaro, Jennings, Lanza, Sears and Oddo voted against it.

Here is the text of the resolution:
http://www.council.nyc.ny.us/textfiles/Res%200011-2004A.htm

Female Bonding, Punctuated by Gunfire
By ALAN FEUER

The NY Times, Published: March 8, 2004
      New York City, it is a rule of thumb among the legal community that the First Amendment comes first, and the Second Amendment comes last.
      New York is not a gun town. With some of the toughest gun laws in the country, it can take upward of 18 months to get a license for your long arm, even if the most you care to do is head upstate for a weekend turkey shoot.
     There is, though, a small but enthusiastic shooting culture in the city, and one place to find its members is at meetings of the Women's Shooting Sports League, which gathers the first Monday of each month in Chelsea for a night of rifle fire and female bonding.
     "When people think of gun owners, they think of butt-scratching bubbas with no teeth," said Amy Heath, the league's founder. "Women in the heartland shoot well, so why not women in New York?"
     It may be that no breed of humanity is less friendly to the firearm than the female Manhattanite, and yet the league, which began last year with only five members, has expanded this year to a core of 15 to 20 regulars, Ms. Heath said.
     They meet at the Westside Rifle and Pistol Range on West 20th Street, where they learn the rudiments of firearm safety from instructors and spend an hour or so cooking off a few hundred rounds of ammunition on the line.
     To Ms. Heath, who is 33 and went into making television documentaries after giving up an acting career, the league is the culmination of a childhood spent among guns.
     She was born in San Diego, moved to Plano, Tex., and spent her adolescence in Rochester, Mich., 40 minutes north of Detroit - a gun-friendly community, she said.
     "There's this fear, this incessant fear, that guns are bad," she said. "Women think they'll shoot themselves in the foot, or shoot someone else. I want to work against that fear."
     She comes from the appropriate stock. Her grandfather, Jeff Cooper (U.S.M.C., retired), sits on the board of the National Rifle Association and is widely considered the father of modern pistol technique. Mr. Cooper also writes "Jeff Cooper's Commentaries," a regular Internet newsletter where one can find his blunt, plainspoken musings on the world, which recently included this:     "Bear in mind that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I know a certain amount about naval gunfire, and I am certainly impressed with the truth of that proposition.''
     If it is tricky to imagine some Manhattan publicist in miniskirt and leather boots taking target practice with a Ruger .22, consider what Ms. Heath's relations in Michigan think about her current home.
     "They think I'm crazy," she explained with a self-effacing laugh. "People always say, 'Jeff Cooper's daughter lives in New York?' "
     There is much to learn from the league about the failure of assumptions. While one might assume, for instance, that the city's reputation for tolerance extends to all manner of behavior, it apparently does not extend to a love of guns.
     "It's tough to be a shooter down here," said Peter Crowell, a 60-year-old management consultant and a volunteer instructor for the league. "New York is, of course, primarily a liberal Democratic kind of place, and over years I've had to hide my interest.
     "If you've never taken delivery of a hundred rounds of small-arms ammunition at your apartment," he went on coyly with a smile, "I can tell you, it's a treat."
     At the same time, it would be wrong to assume that the members of the league are all of the Republican persuasion or even interested in their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
     "I consider myself the opposite of people in rooms like this," said Julia Cohen, a constitutional lawyer who recently joined the league. "I'm a Democrat. I'm a liberal. And I believe that guns are dangerous in the wrong hands."
     Ms. Cohen said she considered shooting a precision art form, much like darts, and found her time with the Ruger an "almost Zen sort of thing." Although she said that politics were far from her mind when she joined, she discovered that the task of getting licensed was much more difficult than she had thought.
     While filling out her license application at police headquarters, she was surprised to find that the authorities wished to know if she had ever seen a psychiatrist or taken narcotics. She said the process was more intrusive than her application to the state bar association.
     "They asked all these probing personal questions that didn't necessarily prove that I, as a thinking person, could or couldn't handle a gun," she said.
     Generally speaking, Ms. Heath goes light on the activism at the meetings, leaving politics to the politicos. This may be why Patrick Brophy, director of political activities for the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, was standing around at the meeting last month dressed in a rep tie and expensive-looking suit.
     Mr. Brophy is not that busy, given that his political action committee did not support a single state official from any New York City district last year, which leaves him time to plug the merits of shooting at league meetings, at least when reporters are around.
     "People who perhaps have never had the opportunity to enjoy the shooting sports should have that opportunity," he said, quickly adding, "without any preconceived notions."
     Notions are one thing; politics is another. It seemed as if the women of the shooting league had simpler things in mind.
     "Oh, yeah, I had a great time," one young woman said coming off the line. "I shot some balloons."

The Folly of Gun Control, By PATRICK W. BROPHY
Publication:The New York Sun; Date:Mar 1, 2004; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page:9
Mr.Brophy is a trial lawyer in New York City. He serves as a director and general counsel of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc.

     Historian Barbara W. Tuchman defined folly as "the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests." In urban America, nothing exemplifies persistent folly like the establishment passion for gun control. Gun control is offensive to the Constitution, offensive to freedom and offensive to common sense. Because only the law-abiding respect such laws, gun control emboldens criminals. Conversely, when criminals do not know who is armed, everyone enjoys greater safety from violent crime.
      Law enforcement lives are needlessly risked and lost in the enforcement of gun control. Precious law enforcement funds are wasted by the millions on fancy gun control projects like ballistic imaging of new firearms, with not a single crime prevented or solved. When one regards the communities in this city where residents are more likely to be both less well-off and more suspicious of unnecessary entanglements with law enforcement, and who will be deemed to be criminals as a result, the racially disparate impact of New York City's prohibitively expensive and oppressive gun control scheme is obvious.
     In no other policy area is empirical data so vituperatively rejected in order to uphold a political article of faith. No other set of life-and-death rules so plainly and predictably favors the merciless at the expense of innocents. What is truly astounding is that the innocents of New York City put up with this folly. For over 20 years now, the rest of America has been standing up to establishment gun control elitists and taking back their rights, while New York City and state, increasingly alone, march in the other direction.
     With Ohio's enactment in January of a law mandating the issuance of a license to carry a personal firearm to law-abiding adults, the city and state of New York are among a shrinking minority of American jurisdictions that continue to cling to a victim disarmament policy. Today, 37 states have laws that either mandate the issuance of a carry license to every qualifying adult who applies, or else do not require that a law-abiding adult obtain such a license in order to carry a personal defense firearm.
     Three of those states -- Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Vermont -- border on New York State. Their citizens are freer than New York's and safer. Vermont has no gun control laws at all. No licensing, no registration, no need to worry about folks circumventing senseless and oppressive laws, no lost law enforcement lives on account of such laws, and amazingly little crime. We could learn a lot from Vermont.
     Last Tuesday in the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg, together with the mayors of other crime-ridden cities, revealed his dedication to the folly of gun control. In effect, he complained that the rest of America, where laws respect the essentially human right that is the Second Amendment, has an obligation to insulate Gotham from the political and economic disequilibrium that New York's peculiar gun control policies make inevitable. Mr. Bloomberg and others like him are losing their arguments in the courts of public opinion, so they beg to take their arguments to the undemocratic courts of their fellow elitists.
     Short of being extremely rich or famous, most New Yorkers will never be granted a carry permit by the NYPD. The police will not accept that you face the same dangers living in the city as do carry permit holders such as actor Robert DeNiro or Steve Tyler of Aerosmith, which is all-the-more remarkable when you realize that Mr.Tyler does not live in New York.With a perfectly clean personal background,a New Yorker will qualify for a pistol to have in her home or business only. God help our average New Yorker if he or she needs that licensed pistol elsewhere. God help average people if they need it soon, because the NYPD will take at least five months and usually more to give her back even this heavily infringed right. Women have been killed in jurisdictions with shorter waiting periods while waiting for government approval of their self defense right.
     Our applicant will pay a $255 fee for a three-year license, unless she applies after Mr. Bloomberg's budget bill goes into effect, since he has called for raising that fee to $340. The applicant will pay that sum, or a higher one, every three years on renewal. The applicant will pay a $99 fee to the state, ostensibly to pay for fingerprint processing. The applicant will be charged this fee even if the State already has the fingerprints on file from a previous pistol or rifle permit application. The applicant will need to pay for photos and notary fees and need copies of utility bills in his or her own name, because the NYPD won't believe applicants when they say they live where they do. And the applicant will have to find a typewriter to use on the original yellow application, because even a neatly handwritten application will be rejected, and one cannot submit a photocopy from a computer printer.
     Our average New Yorker will make no fewer than four visits to police headquarters during the licensing process (including one just to pick up the application, which the NYPD inexplicably will not post on the Internet or mail to you). The application has over 30 questions, some with subparts, some astonishingly irrelevant, (such as wanting to know if any business partners have a pistol license) and at least one that serves no other function but to trap the applicant. (Hint: When you're asked if you have any other licenses, don't forget your driver's license, or else you can start the process again from the beginning.) The applicant will take a day off from work for the last visit to bring in the new firearm for a completely unnecessary "inspection" that the department will only conduct during two hours in the middle of the day. The gun will not seriously be inspected, and nothing else will happen at this occasion that could not be done by mail.
     Mayor Bloomberg would rather sue law-abiding manufacturers and dealers than act on the knowledge that our city's gun control laws leave good citizens at the mercy of armed criminals. Moreover, he doesn't have a clue that, with its prohibitive fees and abusive bureaucratic requirements, the city's gun control actually creates the market for the undocumented gun dealing of which he complains. The city's gun control regime gives millions an irresistible incentive to obtain their personal security needs in the unregulated marketplace where there are no license fees, no fingerprint fees, no renewal fees, no four or more trips to downtown Manhattan, no having the neighbors or employers knowing your private business from a government investigator.
     Every undocumented firearm is not going to a gang member. The federal government estimates there are 2 million undocumented firearms in New York City, and every year over 99.975% of them are not used to kill anyone. Many are going to poor grandmothers, small shopkeepers and all sorts of other good New Yorkers who have a God-given right to defend themselves and their loved ones without a government permission slip. This is the unsinkable American passion to live, and to live free. One would hope that a self-made billionaire in America would comprehend that.

Handgun Control, (aka Brady Campaign,) sues ATF for allowing gun makers to make replacement parts for pre-ban guns.
CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE

   In what has to be one of the stupidest lawsuites that they have ever brought, HCI has filed a lawsuit against, "Attorney General Ashcroft and the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with violating the law by allowing gun manufacturers to make thousands of new illegal assault weapons."
      How is this possible? Using the twisted logic only HCI can have the ; "ATF repeatedly gave Bushmaster permission to manufacture new "receivers" to replace damaged receivers for semiautomatic assault weapons that were possessed before the Assault Weapon Act went into effect in 1994 and thus were protected by the Act's "grandfather" clause." Using that logic then if I added bullets to a pre ban clip then that should be illegal also.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act BILL IS DEFEATED AFTER ANTI-GUNNERS ADD AWB RENEWAL AND OTHER AMENDMENTS

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org

Look who's smiling!

Tuesday, March 2, 2004
     It got quite ugly today in the U.S. Senate.
     First, the U.S. Senate voted to renew the Feinstein semi-auto ban. Then it voted for the McCain gun show ban. All this in addition to the "Lock Up Your Safety" requirement that Senators tacked on to the lawsuit protection bill last week.
      You will remember that Gun Owners of America had warned senators last week to oppose S. 1805 if it was loaded down with gun control provisions. Thankfully, pro-gun senators heeded the call to kill the bill once it was turned into an anti-gun abomination. These senators were joined by their anti-gun counterparts who opposed the underlying bill because they still want to bankrupt the gun makers.
      The final vote on defeating S. 1805 was 90-8.
     You can see how your Senators voted on the gun control amendments at http://www.gunowners.org/cgv.htm on the GOA website. The following describes the critical provisions that were tacked on to the lawsuit protection bill before it was soundly defeated

      The good news is that the attempt to renew the Feinstein semi-auto ban is dead... for now. Of course, there are still semi-auto ban bills pending in the House and Senate, and we can expect Feinstein to again offer her gun ban as an amendment to some other "must pass" bill.
     The bad news is that the prospects for getting any kind of legislation to the President's desk this year to protect gun makers is very slim.
     Today's vote makes it very difficult for a pro-gun senator to offer this bill as an amendment to another bill. After all, anti-gunners can demand that any provision to protect the gun industry now be offered as a "package" with the anti-gun amendments that were attached to the bill over the last couple of days.
     It would have been far better for Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to have brought this Senate bill to the floor in such a way that NO gun control amendments could have been offered. Doing so would have involved using parliamentary tactics that are somewhat difficult to detail in an e-mail alert. But the Senate has often used these tactics in the past. A vote to pass a "clean bill" could very well have succeeded, as almost 60 Senators had cosponsored the underlying legislation.
     GOA wants to thank all of its members and activists for calling and e-mailing their Senators over the last several days. The outpouring of opposition from grassroots gun owners kept phones ringing off the hook in Senate offices, and to be sure, contributed to pulling several "fence sitters" to our side on the Feinstein amendment.
     Again, you can see that vote at http://www.gunowners.org/cgv.htm along with all the others.

Beckett lends name to NRA
USATODAY.com, 2/29/04
CLICK HERE FOR STORY

     Josh Beckett, World Series MVP and avid outdoorsman, didn't do as much deer hunting as usual during a busy offseason in his native Texas. "That was the bad part of my offseason. I think I only went like six times," he says.
      But his high profile in the aftermath of the Series has enhanced his involvement with the National Rifle Association (NRA). He already had been a lifetime member; now he has agreed to lend his name publicly to the advocacy group.
     "It's a great organization that fights for our Constitution and our right to bear arms. It's something that I want to do," Beckett says.
     "I don't get paid by the NRA to be a spokesman or anything like that. I gave them my permission to use my face some. I want to be told about what they're going to use it for and everything, and I know that with that comes some responsibility and also probably some criticism. But I'm willing to do that. It's something I believe in and my family believes in. It's part of our heritage."
     Despite his limited hunting opportunities, Beckett says he shot three bucks in the offseason. None was quite as big as the one he bagged Nov. 11, 2002.
     That deer made him winner of Texas' Muy Grande Deer Contest, an award given for the largest deer shot in Texas during the '02 hunting season. That 14-point buck weighed 245 pounds. On a scoring scale that includes antler measurements and weight, it led the state.