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Special Session Regarding Police Protection and Firearms Legislation

December 20th, 2005
New York State Legislator
RE: Special Session Regarding Police Protection and Firearms Legislation

Our understanding of the purpose of this special session is to create new law that would more effectively protect police officers. The truth of the matter is no law written will provide that degree of protection. It is already against the law to commit murder or commit bank robbery or be in possession of a handgun while committing any of these crimes but none of these laws have stopped predatory criminals. Neither will any new proposal. As long as District Attorney's can plea bargain a gun possession away so as to get a conviction on another crime you will have criminals and their attorneys making such deals. Law proposals that would strictly enforce existing law and/or proposals that would increase the severity of punishment, such as consecutive sentencing for each crime committed instead of concurrent sentencing, for violation of these laws is an acceptable alternative to doing nothing. As long as the objective is to punish the behavior of the criminal and not to pass useless feel good legislation with regard to firearms.

Lawful firearms owners should not be penalized in any way for the anger or frustration over criminal misuse of a gun. It is the criminal's behavior not the implement that is the issue. Please do not lose sight of the facts and get caught up in the hype. We are aware of 3 specific bills that will be considered; S-6020-A, S-4052 and A-9083. After reviewing the 3 bills there is some merit to the Senate bills even though there are parts that need require serious clarification before becoming law. The worst of the bills however is the Assembly bill that just runs roughshod all over New York citizens' rights. This assembly bill is nothing more than a back door attempt to use the tragic circumstances of a policeman's murder to further an anti-gun agenda. There is not sufficient space or time here to go over every detail of the bill and its flaws. But maybe that was the intention all along, not to give the law abiding firearms community the opportunity to go over the specific details of this horrendous proposed legislation. We urge you all to reject these proposals now and take them up at a time when full and honest deliberations and unhurried discussion can take place. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss in detail our objections of this proposed bill and help with positive solutions to the issue of police officer protection while not infringing on individual citizens rights.

John L. Cushman, President

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