Gun Rights Group Wins Access To Potentially Embarrassing NY Gun Registration Data

A New York gun right’s group just won a state Supreme court victory that could turn out to be incredibly embarrassing for Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York’s rabidly anti-gun legislature:

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A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that the state needs to make public statistical information on the number of assault weapons registered in New York.

The April 30 ruling in Albany was disclosed Thursday by the Shooters Committee on Public Education, a gun-rights group that sued last year after the state refused to release the details. State Police claimed the information was not public under a gun-control law passed in January 2013.

Paloma Capanna, a Rochester-area lawyer who represented the group, called the decision a major victory for transparency in government.

She said she would file an order demanding the release of the data if the state doesn’t immediately comply; the state may also appeal. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Bill Robinson, a Penfield, Monroe County, gun-rights activist.

What’s so embarrassing for the state about this aggregate data?

The expected lack of it:

The April 15 deadline to register firearms deemed “assault weapons” under Governor Cuomo’s NY SAFE Act has been met by hordes of New York Gun owners not rushing to register firearms, and the ceremonial burning of registration forms.

Unofficial estimates suggest that as few as 3,000-5,000 of the estimated 1-2 million firearms that have been redefined as “assault weapons” under New York’s utterly arbitrary and blatantly unconstitutional law have been registered. Literally dozens of gun owners in the state of 19.57 million (2012) residents will take the opportunity to register today.

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Cuomo and his anti-gun allies in Albany exploited the horrors of the Sandy Hook School disaster to ram through the NY SAFE—a gun control “kitchen sink” bill that was jammed full of absurd, inaccurate, often unenforceable provisions—and has been fighting a defensive battle ever since. Many upstate law enforcement officers have publicly stated their refusal to enforce the draconian law, and many gun owners reacted by refusing to comply with “assault weapon” registration requirements.

The vast majority of gun owners felt that this registration attempt was a possible prelude to a future confiscation effort. Non-compliance is thought to be stunningly high, something in excess of the estimated 90-percent non-compliance rate for registration in neighboring Connecticut. These are truly “just paper” laws which the citizenry has brazenly ignored, and which the state law enforcement agencies in both states dare not attempt to aggressively enforce for legitimate fears that they could trigger a violent insurrection.

New York and Connecticut have proven that they have the ability to pass draconian gun control laws.

They’ve also shown that they don’t come close to having the ability to enforce them.

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