ORANGE COUNTY NEWS
Sign up for the Annual March on Albany
 Sign
up now for this years March on Albany. Last year the bus was almost full
and we had a great time. The trip is free and we even provide food.
It is important that we have as many people
as we can take the trip and meet with the people who are going to vote
on the bills that will impact you in many areas of your life including
your right to hunt, fish, own guns and all of the taxes, fees that you
pay and the laws, rules and regulations that you have to follow.
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Mid-Hudson News Network carries OCShooters.com story
Mid-Hudson News Network carried the following
story on Thursday, February 17, 2005. They also had a segment in their
online audio feed that contained me giving the same quote. NYAGV does
have separate New Yorkers Against Gun Violence Educational Fund and PAC
but they are not the ones who lobby for gun control.
Gun rights advocate says weapon issue is being
blown out of proportion
George Rogero of Washingtonville is a
gun rights advocate who believes so strongly in it that he operates OCShooters.com,
an educational web site “designed to promote the safe, legal and
responsible use of firearms.
Rogero takes exception with groups that
step forward in situations like the shopping mall shootings in the Town
of Ulster last weekend. “New Yorkers Against gun Violence are a
501-4C tax exempt organization; the whole purpose behind their organization
is to lobby for gun control laws,” he said. “They don’t
have any programs for education services; you can’t call them up
and get a pamphlet about gun safety.”.
Members of that group came to Ulster County
Tuesday to call for a stricter New York State law to ban all assault-type
weapons including “copy cat” and “knock-off” versions.
The whole gun control, assault weapon debate
resurfaced after a man walked into the Hudson Valley Mall last Sunday
and opened fire on shoppers with a semi-automatic assault rifle. |
Family Court Judge seat election this year, issues Pistol license
IF ANYONE HAS REQUESTED AN UNRESTRICTED LICENSE
FROM JUDGE JENKINS-KIEDAISCH, PLEASE CONTACT ME AT INFO@OCSHOOTERS.COM
Orange County has six Judges who issue
Pistol Licenses and those Judges are elected for 10 years. If you want
to have an impact, now is the time to talk to the people who are running
for the position to see how they feel about unrestricted licenses. This
year a Family Court position is open and incumbent Democrat Judge Debra
Jenkins-Kiedaisch will be seeking a 2nd term.
The position deals with pistol licenses
issued in the City of Newburgh and the Town of Newburgh. As far as I know
Judge Kiedaisch has been fair when issuing unrestricted licenses but not
as good as some other Judges. She has some additional requirements like
you have to have your license for a while and have other "valid reasons."
Seeking the May nomination for the Republican
nomination is Christine Krahulik, law secretary to Family Court Judge
Carol Klein, Lori Currier Woods who is a Monroe lawyer and town Councilwoman
and possibly Wallkill Town Justice Robert Freehill. ( I will be contacting
these people in the next few weeks to talk to them about their position
and to present my position.)
Pinning down any Judge or nominee on this
issue is like pushing a rope. They all will say that they will be fair
and will address each application and request for an unrestricted license
on an individual basis but when they get into office they come up with
additional requirements you must meet to get an unrestricted license.
Only a couple of Judges recognize that just because they put restrictions
on a license that does not mean that someone with a license will be prevented
from becoming a criminal. As another Judge said, "I do not think
that anyone has ever said that they were prevent from robbing a bank because
their license was restricted and they had not applied for an amendment
that stated, "Permission to carry restricted to going to, from robbing
a bank." "
Nominations are selected in May so the choosing
is done way before most people are thinking about elections. Members of
local committees are the ones who choose the nominee and normally they
do not have a party primary so it is almost impossible for anyone not
on a committee to have any influence except to bring up the subject during
debates. |
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Deerpark has a great idea and new law
that will prevent loss of hunting land and gun clubs because of new residential
or commercial building. NY law makes it illegal to fire a gun or shoot
a bow within 500' of a building so if someone buys land next to a gun
range or hunting land and builds next to the property line, that means
that the club can not allow any shooting within the 500 from their property
line. This new law requires that if the land owner wants to build within
500' or the property line, they must get the OK from the club with a 99
year agreement.(NOTE: David Dirks was on NRANEWS.com talking about
this new law.) |
Orange County to get new style NY Pistol License
Orange County is in the process of switching
over to the new style plastic pistol license. Some minor bugs in the system
has delayed the introduction of the new system they are using past the
hoped for first of the year introduction. They hope to have the new system
up and running by the end of the month.
The people in the Pistol Department have done
a lot of work to get the new system up and running while at the same time
doing all of their regular work and having to explain how the new system
is going to work. A big huzzah to them and the County Clerk, Donna Benson.
This is the new style NY Pistol License. The color of the license is white.
(How do you like the caliber of the Glock?)
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I won a nice 12g Beretta shotgun with two barrels, a regular barrel
with 3 chokes and a rifled slug barrel
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The twelfth
annual Friends of the NRA Dinner is on track to be the biggest ever.
The Orange County Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs has always endorsed,
promoted and supported this annual dinner and members of the Federation
have spent many long hours picking up donations and arranging for
prizes and awards.
Last year many prizes ranging from
prints, decoys, ammo and many guns were given away in the many raffles
and drawings.
Tickets are only $35 and the food
is great. Make sure that you attend this year.
CLICK
HERE FOR MORE INFO |
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Following in the footsteps of SCOPE
and its Yahoo Forum, OCShooters.com has started a new Yahoo
Forum at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OCShooters/
The forum will allow those who visit OCShooters
a chance to meet and talk with other people in Orange County and exchange
ideas and information. Primarily this forum is designed to answer questions
about firearms issues related to Orange County NY and related questions
of NY State and National issues that directly impact firearms related
issues in Orange County NY. Secondarily, other issues related to hunting,
fishing, trapping and other related outdoor activities and related events,
clubs and other organizations will be address.
Anyone can join the forum and when you sign
up, you can select if you don't want to get e-mails that contain the most
recent post or if you want to get e-mails every time one is posted or
a daily post that contains all the post on one day. |
NEW YORK STATE NEWS
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Mayor Bloomberg blasted gunmakers yesterday
and hinted he favors an all-out ban on handguns.
He assailed a bill headed for a vote in
Congress that would grant gun manufacturers immunity from liability suits
by victims of gun violence.
"What they [backers of the bill] want
to do is say that the manufacturer has absolutely no responsibility for
who the guns get sold to or how they're used," Bloomberg said on
his weekly WABC-AM radio show.
Asked by program host John Gambling whether
handguns should be banned, Bloomberg mused, "I'm not so sure I wouldn't
think that is a good idea."
The mayor's stance drew counterfire from
gun-rights advocates as well as Thomas Ognibene, a former Queens councilman
who is challenging Bloomberg for the Republican mayoral nomination.
"He's appealing to liberal voters in
New York City," said Thomas King, president of the New York State
Rifle and Pistol Association. "In the primary, there will be Republicans
who will be outraged by it." The solution to gun crimes isn't punishing
manufacturers, Ognibene said, but "stiffer punishment of the criminals
who use guns."
Bloomberg, a former Democrat, became a Republican
before his 2001 mayoral bid, and has shunned GOP positions on many issues.
 Hey
Mike, does that also include your private armed guards? You have already
taken away most of the handgun licenses in NY City by making them worthless.
They are only good in NYC, you have to pay $340 every 3 years. Now you
want to take away all of the few legal handguns that are left in NYC?
Most of them are in the hands of store owners who will be easy targets
if you get your way. What about NY State law that states that people can
have a handgun license? Is NYC not a part of NY State?
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Hold on to your rights, pocket book and crossed Ts and dotted Is
The NY legislature is back in session.
The NY legislature is back in session for
another two years and the anti-gunners hit the ground running. All ready
on the agenda are all of the normal bills plus a few new ones
| Renewable handgun license |
Ban on 50 Cals |
Ban on certain ammo |
Expanded AW Ban |
| More rules and regulations |
Insurance for guns |
Sue you if your gun is stolen |
Required Safety Classes |
and a new bill that would revise the state's definition of animal cruelty
to include the "killing or injuring [of] wild game and wild birds."
While the sponsor of the bill states that it should not impact hunting,
no one believes him. Even if he was telling the truth no one thinks for
a second that some liberal NY City Judge will ignore the intent of the
law and end hunting in NY and it will take years for the case to work
through the courts and who knows who would win. Just look across the border
to NJ and their Bear hunt. (The
ban was supported by the NJ chapter of the Sierra Club.) NJ hunters
though that they would win in court but instead, decades of law and traditions
was thrown out the window when the court decided that a single appointed
person, Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell, gets to decide what
is hunted, when and under what conditions.
There are some pro-gun bills and some do
have a chance of passing. We hope that the CoBIS program will be stopped
and the youth hunting bill will be passed.
HOW DO YOU KEEP UP WITH ALL OF THIS?
Several hundred bills show up each year
and it is hard to keep track and figure out what they mean. Normally the
Dem. controlled pass all of the anti-gun bills in one day with little
if no debate and keep the pro-gun bills in committee. The Senate is the
reverse, passing pro-gun bills and holding anti-gun bills in committee.
The only difference is that the Assembly passes almost every anti-gun
bill that they can find while the Senate only passes a few bills and people
like Sen. Morahan like to give excuses why no pro-gun bills should pass.
The best way to see everything is to check
out the LEGISLATIVE REPORT that SCOPE
has or that the NYSRPA
does. Just don't get too upset when you see the bill that would ban all
handguns or that would limit Ammo sales to 90 rounds every 90 days, you
will see them every year. |
CoBIS FINALLY HAS A HIT, WELL, SORT OF, MAYBE
NOTE: 2/23/05
This report is 75% rumor. The fact that CoBIS did have a hit using the
NIBIN data in a 2 year old + case from Rochester and that the statue of
limitations had run out, (and so the crime was a misdemeanor,) has been
confirmed by DCJS however the details have not been confirmed and DCJS
would not provide them but told me to contact the Rochester Police Department
and they require a FOIL. I have a FOIL in with the Rochester Police Department
and I will update the information if I get more information.
At the end of 2004 CoBIS had one
hit using data supplied though a loophole in federal law that allowed
NIBIN information to be compared against the CoBIS Database. The hit involved
a "shots fired" case in Rochester. The crime was a misdemeanor
and by the time the match was made, the statue of limitations had run
out. The person who owned the gun had already been in trouble and his
handgun had been taken away while his license was being suspended/revoked.
This case shows several problems with CoBIS.
One is that if they compared all handguns taken by the police for cause,
they might have solved this "crime" before the statue of limitations
had ended. Another one is that even if they had a match the next day,
the police could have only shown that they got a report of shots fired
and when they got there they found the spent cases. The person who owned
the gun could have said many things like; the owner had some spent brass
in their car and threw it out the window when they were driving in the
area and then someone else shot something and the police did not find
that brass, just theirs or a car had backfired and their was no shooting
at all.
This is the same type of hit as Maryland
had with the MD-IBIS program. While that did match a gun to "crime",
the crime investigation was not "enhanced or expedited through the
use of" CoBIS. In this case even if the police had gone to the person
and told them they had a match and the person said that they did it, the
case still could have not been taken forward because of the statue of
limitation. |
New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and NY Sen. Schneiderman want to ban
more guns
They have been waiting since the Federal
Assault Weapons Ban ended for something to happen so they could push more
gun bans and the shooting in the Kingston Mall is the best that they have
had so far. It does not matter to them that the gun the guy used was built
to comply with the Federal and NY's own state ban and by their own requirements
and definition was not an assault weapon or that the gun was sold legally
or that the guy could have done the same thing with any number of guns
including guns not on their new "Banned" list.
NYAGV's goal is to have more gun control
laws passed and it does not matter what they have said in the past or
if the law will really have any impact on crime. (Such as their support
of expanding CoBIS even though the program is a total failure.) Now they
want to pass in NY, a copy of the expanded AWB that Sen Lautenberg proposed
last year that failed in Congress, (Look
up S. 1431). NY State Sen. Schneiderman's bill, (Look
up S2445,) is still being written but it bans 51 more guns and some
more features. When I talked to Sen. Schneiderman office in NYC, the person
stated that the new law was needed because the gun makers were able to
make a few cosmetic changes to make the guns legal but did not change
the function of the guns. Their was a pause on the other end of the phone
when I then stated: "So what you mean is that the AWB only banned
guns based on cosmetic features and now that guns have been built in compliance
with the law you are saying that the gun makers are using a "Loophole"
to build guns to avoid the AW Ban even though they are built according
to your specifications and by your own definition are not Assault Weapons."
From an 2002 article about White Plains Councilman William King trying
to stop KMART
from selling guns or Ammo:
"Initiatives like King's are important,
said Andy Pelosi, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence
Education Fund, because they draw attention to the fact that by displaying
firearms and ammunition alongside such merchandise as hiking gear and
running shoes, they are made to seem like benign household items.
"The myth is that these
guns are used to dink cans, but they are really designed to kill people,"
Pelosi said.
Statements like these infuriate
hunters, target shooters and members of the New York State Rifle and
Pistol Association, who say they are under siege nationwide because
of actions like King's.
"We are all against crime with guns,
but they want to outlaw firearms," said Stewart Hanson, treasurer
of the Putnam County Fish and Game Association in Carmel. "It would
not stop crime. Only the outlaws would have guns."
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(1/26/05) - League
of Women Voters of New York State supports the expanding
of NY's CoBIS to "Include all projectiles from all guns sold to New
York State residents that do not eject casings when fired; and Include
all shell casings from all rifles and shotguns." in their May
04 State Board Report.
I talked to Aimee Allaud, Off-Board Specialist
- Government/Campaign Finance Reform/Gun Control and she told me that
she was unaware of the MD report or any of the problems that CoBIS had
and that she, "usually takes my cues from the New Yorkers Against
Gun Violence." Aimee Allaud has also distributed
Million Mom march sign-up sheets at other local group meeting and
has listed the League of Women Voters phone number, (518- 465-4162,) as
a point of contact. (She also admitted that she does not own any gun
UPDATE - 1/30/05 - Rob Marchiony called me about the League of Women Voters
position and said that he would talk to Aimee Allaud about it and that
he would get back to me. |
FBI 03 crime numbers v Brady's anti-gun rating
for each state