New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s popularity is on the same track as the president’s. With 56 percent of voters giving Cuomo a negative job approval rating, according to a Siena College poll, which is eight percentage points down from October, he’s having a hard time finding friends these days. Much of the disenchantment, it seems, is due to his push for gun control and the controversial SAFE Act Cuomo hurried into law in January after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Cuomo’s gun control legislation requires New York to have the toughest gun laws in the country. The local news station WHEC Rochester outlined the specifics:
The law bans the purchase of assault weapons. If you had the weapons before January 15, you have to register them. It limits the number of rounds you can legally have in a magazine to seven and requires mental health professionals to report credible threats from patients.
It’s easy to guess gun-owning New Yorkers aren’t happy. The law is so unpopular that 52 out of 62 counties in the state have passed resolutions opposing it. The NRA’s state affiliate is even asking for a hearing to challenge the law.
“When you are able to stand in front of someone and verbalize the case, it becomes abundantly clear how ridiculous some of these things are,’’ Tom King, president of the gun-rights group, said Tuesday.
Pro-Second Amendment New Yorkers also showed up at Cuomo’s private political fundraising event in Buffalo Tuesday night to give the governor a not-so-warm welcome (and it wasn’t because of the weather.) Protesting outside of the Hyatt Regency hotel (opposite some anti-fracking demonstrators), members of the Second Amendment Coalition of Western New York chanted “Cuomo’s gotta go!” to criticize his anti-gun policy.
"For him to say that he thinks that he can take our rights away is to say that he's God, and until he gets promoted as some sort of divinity, he doesn't have that right," says Joseph Mesler.
Mesler’s frustrations are justified when considering studies that have shown no correlation between gun control and less violent crime. What's more, Governor Cuomo has not provided any concrete numbers of his own to prove his SAFE Act is having an impact in New York and the Rochester Police Department released new crime data last month to show shootings actually increased from this time last year.
Not too "SAFE," huh?