ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers rushed a gun-control law through in January that prohibits the sale of magazines that can hold more than seven bullets, the nation’s lowest limit.
Problem is, nobody makes seven-bullet magazines.
Now, state leaders are planning to suspend the prohibition, which is due to take effect April 15, until they can rewrite the measure.
The nation’s first new gun-control law since last December’s Newtown school massacre reduces the number of bullets allowed in a magazine to seven from 10, except at firing ranges and shooting competitions.
“Gun manufacturers don’t make seven-round magazines and aren’t planning to,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver conceded yesterday.
Lawmakers will have to put the measure on hold — but any new measure, they say, would still limit the number of bullets that can be carried to seven in a larger magazine.
Silver said he, Cuomo and Senate leaders plan to suspend any provision of the law that “presumes that manufacturers are going to manufacture” seven-round magazines.
He said the length of the suspension hasn’t been determined.
Cuomo’s office had no comment yesterday, but the governor this week conceded “there is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine . . . so you really have no practical option.”
Cuomo also said he and lawmakers may exempt retired law-enforcement officers from the gun-control law’s limits. That was a sore point with police unions around the state.
Meantime, the National Rifle Association joined its New York affiliate in a suit filed yesterday in Buffalo federal court challenging the new law.
The state Rifle & Pistol Association’s suit alleges Second Amendment and equal-protection violations — in part because of the seven-round limit.
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature usurped the legislative and democratic process in passing these extreme anti-gun measures with no committee hearings and no public input,” said NRA Institute for Legislative Action executive director Chris W. Cox.
“Law-abiding citizens have a fundamental right to keep commonly possessed firearms for defense of themselves and their families and for other lawful purposes,” NRA Institute for Legislative Action executive director Chris W. Cox said.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman promised an aggressive defense of the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act.
“The SAFE Act is a comprehensive law that is making New York communities safer while ensuring constitutional protections to responsible gun owners,” Schneiderman said.