By Tom Rood 

On Friday, February 6, a meeting organized by Yates County SCOPE chapter President John Prendergast was held in the Big Flats Town Hall for leaders of the southern tier SCOPE chapters and our elected officials. The purpose of the meeting was a frank interchange of comments regarding our efforts in Albany to repeal Gov. Cuomo's so-called SAFE Act and future directions in resolving this issue. Officials present were Assemblymen Phil Palmesano (132nd district- Chemung, Seneca, Schuyler, Steuben), Assemblyman Chris Friend (124th district- Broome, Chemung, Tioga), State Senator Tom O'Mara (58th district- Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, Tompkins, Yates), and Joe Sempolinski from Congressman Tom Reed's 23rd congressional district office. With the exception of Broome County, Congressman Reed represents these counties as well as Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Ontario.

The meeting room was pretty much filled and while no attendance list was taken, nearly all, if not all, of the eight Southern tier SCOPE chapter counties were represented.

The meeting kicked off shortly after 2:30 pm with opening comments from Yates County SCOPE president John Prendergast. John thanked everyone for coming and explained the reason why the meeting was set up and that if others had issues they wanted to bring forward, an opportunity for them would be made available at the conclusion of the program.

John pointed out that SCOPE is working hard organizing new SCOPE chapters, and registered voters- regardless of political affiliation - to support those political candidates that recognize our Second Amendment Rights and to continue to keep control of the NYS Senate. SCOPE stated position is full repeal of the SAFE Act. SCOPE is stronger now and is a recognized voice in the political arena and is being heard.

Phil Palmesano has always been a strong Second Amendment supporter and a strong SCOPE supporter as well and his opening comments were pretty much in that light.

Assemblyman Chris Friend, in his opening remarks, pointed out that while a couple of years ago there were only 14 counties that had active SCOPE Chapters, there are now, as a direct result of passage of the SAFE Act, 43 upstate NY counties with SCOPE Chapters and three more counties with organizing committees (Chris had done his home work well before the meeting). SCOPE is making a better connection in getting people registered to vote and getting them to the polls. Chris went on to mention that several races are decided by just a handful of vote differences and that absentee ballots are important and we need to work to get more people to send them in if they are away during actual voting periods.

Joe Sempolinski said that if Tom Reed had been a member of the state legislature, he would have voted against the Safe Act. Tom Reed is in favor of the reciprocity bill and, according to Joe, has an excellent voting record where the Second Amendment was the issue. As for the .223 green ammo situation, congress is working on the funding for the DHS; but the president is using executive orders to get around congress.

Senator Tom O'Mara took over from here and gave us a lot of insight as to the workings of the legislature. Getting full repeal of the SAFE Act is nil as the downstate dems control the assembly and they are not going to vote for repeal and the governor will never sign a bill doing it. State Senate Chair Dene Skelos told a group of senators that passage of the SAFE Act was a mistake. John Predergast pointed out that while Skelos might say that now, in the past he was anti-gun.

Senator O'Mara pointed out that the budget for NY is not a line item budget where specific items can be crossed out. Various agencies put in the budget the things they want the money for and they get a pool of funding as a result. From this money, they can move things around pretty much as they see fit. For example, while the ammo purchase background check software technology required in the SAFE Act is not currently available, there is no way to prevent funding for it in the budget process.

Another SAFE Act issue regarding the State Police controlling the 5 year renewal of concealed carry permits, getting it put back into the hands of county clerks where it is now would become another unfunded mandate from the state.

There might be some light at the end of the tunnel regarding definition of the assault rifle definitions. Pistol grips will probably remain, but the thumb hole in the stock might be eliminated (I took a rifle apart and brought a thumb hole stock to the meeting for the legislators to see just in case they were not up to speed on just what it was. My question to all of them was just how does this make any rifle more of an assault rifle?).

Comments from here went onto some other Albany issues. Cuomo sees teachers, in effect, corrupt as well as his own legislature. He actually believes it, which brought a bit of laughter from the audience. Just about every group that has to deal with the governor's office sees him as a bully- his way or the highway. Both sides of the aisle see it the same way and feel the pressure from it.

As for using the NYC rent subsidy issue as a bargaining chip to get some SAFE Act changes, Senator O'Mara pointed out that true, this was a big issue for NYC; but at the same time, upstate people look for property tax rate caps and they are not a NYC issue. So there goes the standoff.

It was pointed out from the audience that the state constitution does not have Second Amendment provision. Getting one as an amendment is not going to happen. However, the proposed state constitution convention in 2017 would be the place to handle it. Senator O'Mara would like to see this and may promote it.

Senator O'Mara is also in favor of mandate relief. Additionally the state rules concerning the Passage due to Need of Necessity (which Cuomo used to push the SAFE Act to a vote) needs to be revised. But getting 60 down state assemblymen to vote SAFE Act repeal is not going to happen.

From the audience - There are some who would like to see a senate and assembly vote on the repeal of the SAFE Act so we could get feel of who those legislators that vote against it. While this was not brought out at the meeting, upstate senators and assemblymen are listening harder to SCOPE and other Second Amendment groups like it. The reasoning is not hard to find. In November 2014, 28 NY legislators were not reelected. Some chose not to run for reelection. But 21 of those who voted for the SAFE Act were voted out of office! Fifty two county legislatures passed anti-Safe Act resolutions. Two hundred red sixty five Town Governments did likewise.

My final personal comments:

SCOPE plans to continue to organize new chapters and recruit new members in significant numbers and its Albany voice will continue to grow. Governor Cuomo has awakened a sleeping giant and he knows he shot himself in the foot with the passage of the SAFE Act. He badly misread his constituency, thinking he would ride into Washington on the SAFE Act's coat tails, but he torpedoed his own ship for all time. He might be governor of NY for another 4 years, but his political career is over.