Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, a registered Conservative, is bucking his party to back Gov. Cuomo’s campaign for tougher gun-control laws, including a ban on assault rifles.
“It’s plain common sense,” Molinaro said. “Assault weapons shouldn’t be sold to civilians.”
Molinaro, who served as executive vice chairman of the New York State Conservative Party before his election, attended Cuomo’s fund-raiser at the Waldorf Monday night, and said he’s fully behind the governor’s bid to prohibit access to semiautomatic weapons.
“We can all agree that people shouldn’t have these type of weapons. Why should someone have a weapon that discharges six bullets per second? There is no rhyme or reason for a person to possess a gun that can cause that much damage,” he said.
He added that hunters don’t need that kind of firepower.
“What are you trying to hunt for? Dinosaurs? If you shot a deer with that much ammo, there wouldn’t be any deer left to eat,” he said.
He said he’s also joining Mayor Bloomberg in prodding President Obama and Congress to pass tougher national gun-control laws to stem the flow of illegal arms into New York.
Molinaro’s position indicates a split in conservative ranks since the Newtown school massacre, the deadly ambush on volunteer firefighters in upstate Webster, and the shootings of three NYPD officers in one night.
The killers in Newtown and Webster, as well as in the Colorado movie massacre, all used the same kind of .223-caliber AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle.
Cuomo was working with lawmakers last night to negotiate an agreement on new gun laws that he could announce today in his State of the State speech.
Yesterday, state Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long took issue with Cuomo and Molinaro. He said Cuomo is focusing on symbolism rather than substance because New York already has among the toughest gun-control laws in the nation, including a ban on military-style assault weapons.
“I oppose more gun restrictions. The gun is not the problem,” Long said. “The individual is the problem.”
Long, instead, supports boosting penalties and lengthening prison time for people convicted of gun-related crimes. He said it was outrageous that the man who killed the firefighters in Webster had been paroled from prison after doing 17 years for savagely killing his grandmother with a hammer.
“Why was that guy out of prison? That’s what the governor should be focusing on,” Long said.
Instead of new gun-control laws, New York state Senate Republicans have proposed a tougher crackdown against gun-related crimes, which Long backs.
The Conservative Party platform has long closely mirrored the National Rifle Association’s position of opposing any gun restrictions.
The party’s 2012 legislative agenda states: “We support legislation that upholds the Second Amendment rights granted to citizens in good standing. Citizens in good standing shall have the right to protect themselves with legally purchased firearms.”
The party platform also opposes local or state laws that conflict with federal law in the issuing of licenses or permits to carry firearms. New York state’s gun laws are stricter than the federal government’s.
Molinaro, though, said authorities must focus on gun restrictions and enforcement alike.
“You have to get to the root cause,” he said. “There are still plenty of guns around. The best cure is prevention.”