By Tom Reynolds S.C.O.P.E. Treasurer and Director 

Are you tired of politicians lording over us as our masters and telling us what to do? We can strike back by voting. Angry about Upstate New York’s values, rights and economy being trampled down by New York City politicians? Upstate gun owners, themselves, have the ability to turn that around; all they have to do is vote! When people say they do not have a voice, that’s only because they are not speaking by not voting. Want to say “up yours” to the politicians? Vote!

SCOPE estimates there are 5.5 million gun owners in New York State. The lowest estimates for NYS are 4 million gun owners. There are 19 million people in NY State, so between 1 out of 4 and 1 out of 5 New Yorkers is a gun owner. As New York City makes it very difficult to own a gun, the vast majority of these gun owners are in Upstate New York.

In 2017, there were a total of 2.017 million union workers in New York State verses 5.5 million gun owners. If we could get just one-half of all gun owners to vote, we would be the biggest political force in NY State.

In 2014, there were less than 4 million total votes cast in the governor’s race. Cuomo got 2.1 million votes and his challenger (Astorino) got 1.6 million votes. Since not everyone who voted for Astorino was a gun owner and some gun owners probably voted for Cuomo, it’s reasonable to suggest that only about 1.2 million gun owners voted, or about 1 out of 4 gun owners.

If you want a politician’s attention, one needs to supply money or votes. It costs nothing to vote. Politicians are well aware that gun owners will not vote; one party feels free to attack us and our rights and the other party has shown no overwhelming need to defend us, since neither pays a price in elections.

Some gun owners will say they don’t vote because they don’t like either candidate. I can sympathize with that as I often vote for the lesser-of-two-evils, since one candidate is really awful. But if we want to change that and if we want to start voting for instead of against candidates, we have to first establish a presence and that is only done by voting. Once you are in the system, we can primary the lesser-of-twoevils and get real candidates for whom we want to vote.

The leaders of SCOPE, as well as other 2A organizations, are more than willing to do the heavy lifting. But they need numbers backing them up to give them credibility and those numbers only come from the voting booth. You start taking back your government and saying “up yours” to the political class by voting.

Time is of the essence. If you are not registered to vote, the last day to register is October 12thin order to vote this November. If you are registered then VOTE, YOUR RIGHTS DEPEND ON IT!