Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
For the second time in less than two months, a lawyer representing opponents of the SAFE Act gun control law has prevailed over the Cuomo administration in efforts to get at records and documents pertaining to the law.
The governor's office is likely to appeal the latest ruling, which focuses on the planning before a rally against the SAFE Act at the Empire State Plaza.
Acting state Supreme Court Justice Michael Melkonian, in a ruling last month, said the administration should provide correspondence among government officials prior to the April 1, 2014, rally during which police confiscated two protest signs that looked like weapons.
A gun-rights group, the Shooters Committee on Political Education, or SCOPE, sought the records.
They wanted to know if the governor's lawyers "concocted a special regulation designed to suppress protestors right to use toy guns in exercise of their First Amendment Rights," according to court papers filed in Albany County.
The Cuomo Administration refused to give up all the requested documents, numbering more than 150, citing attorney-client privilege.
SCOPE then retained a western New York lawyer, James Ostroswki, to pursue the documents in court.
The rally drew an estimated 5,000 anti-SAFE Act demonstrators, including some who dressed in Colonial garb and carried signs vilifying both the law and the governor.
At the time, most of the attention focused on the speakers, including western New York businessman and onetime gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino and Donald Trump, who was toying with a run for governor at the time. Rob Astorino, who challenged Cuomo on the GOP line in November, also attended.
As the speakers railed against the SAFE Act, however, police confiscated two signs or items that looked like replicas of assault weapons, one plastic and one made of wood.
Prior to the rally, authorities had put up signs stating: "Anything that appears to be a weapon including toy guns and other replicas are strictly prohibited today at the Empire State Plaza."
Ostrowski argued that the gun replicas were "political messages and were clearly not firearms."
Melkonian's decision came less than two months after another judge ordered the State Police to release statistics about how many assault style weapons have been registered, as required by the SAFE Act.
Cuomo pushed through the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act in 2013, weeks after the massacre of elementary school children and teachers by a gun-wielding killer in Newtown, Conn.
Central to the law was a ban on assault weapons, characterized by military-style features such as pistol grips or flash suppressors.
Those who owned such guns were grandfathered, though, but they were supposed to register them with the State Police.
The ban angered Second Amendment supporters who coalesced around groups like SCOPE. It also sparked a number of lawsuits including one ongoing action, filed with support from the National Rifle Association.
As it turned out, the 2014 rally ended uneventfully, with no arrests or notable incidents — and the two replica gun/signs were returned to their owners.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Judge-to-Cuomo-Administration-Hand-over-SAFE-Act-6443744.php