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Gun violence: Disaster emergency won’t fix anything

Why, exactly, does Gov. Andrew Cuomo need a first-in-the-nation gun violence disaster emergency if the SAFE Act is as good as advertised?

Thatás a good question for which we have no good answer. Chances are, neither does the governor.

Guns are still getting into the hands of those who use them to commit crimes when they shouldnát be to the point that gun violence is a serious issue in many communities throughout New York state ä including Jamestown. Gun crimes are on the rise in Jamestown, increasing from 18 cases through June 30, 2020, to 32 cases through June 30, 2021.

The problems are worse in bigger cities. Shooting through June have increased 68% in New York City, while Albany has seen a 120% increase in shootings compared to its five-year average.

Those numbers are scary, but do they rise to the level of a state of emergency that requires giving Gov. Andrew Cuomo a new area over which to exercise unchecked authority?

They most certainly does not.

Emergency declarations are for sudden disasters that require quick action. Gun violence has been a problem for years in some parts of the state. State and federal money has been sent to several areas of the state, including Jamestown, to halt gun violence. Gun violence is not a sudden disaster like a massive snowstorm, hurricane or tornado that destroys a town.

Besides, many of the things Cuomo wants to implement can be done already, by himself, with no disaster declaration. The governor is free to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention and a Council on Gun Violence Reduction; to have the Division of Criminal Justice Services poll police departments weekly for gun incident data; to create a Gun Trafficking Interdiction Unit within the New York State Police and to implement plans to strengthen relationships between police departments and the communities they serve. The state Legislature has already approved much of the spending included in Cuomoás âemergencyã plan.

As we have seen with COVID-19, Cuomo is not a governor to be trusted with unchecked authority. What is to stop the governor from further encroaching into the Second Amendment rights of good gun owners under this disaster declaration?

The governorás recent declaration of a gun violence disaster emergency is a stunt, plain and simple. And it is a stunt that the state Legislature should quickly bring to an end in a special session of the legislature. While theyáre at it, legislators should consider measures to give judges discretion to keep those alleged to have committed gun crimes off the streets longer. Such a simple step would do as much to stop gun crimes as it anything else in the governorás plan.

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