Kathy Hochul won re-election by a 5-point margin and truly believes that she has a ‘mandate from the people’ to advance the most aggressive gun control agenda in American history.
And while gun owners won some key races in Long Island and a few other corners of the state, the Assembly and the State Senate remain firmly in the hands of the Radical Left in Albany.
The bottom line is that we’re in for a hell of a year in our fight to defend the Second Amendment here in New York State!
That’s why I am writing you today.
With the onslaught that we know is coming, I need to make tough choices on where to focus our time and our financial resources in 2023. And since we work for our members, I am asking for your input on how you want us to proceed!
After everything the NYSFA has been through this year — fighting to block even more gun control in Albany, exposing gun-grabbers at election time, and fighting to overturn Hochul’s gun control in Federal Court — we simply can’t fight every battle that’s before us with the same intensity.
The truth is that without a quick infusion of funds from NYSFA members, we may have to sit out several of these fights.
That’s why I have prepared your 2023 NYS Firearms Association Membership Ballot with this email. I’m counting on you to read this update and then fill out your ballot IMMEDIATELY!
But before you fill out your ballot, let me take a moment to tell you where things stand here in Albany, and the types of threats that will be facing us this session.
Fresh off her victory last year and still furious that the Supreme Court has clipped her wings with last year’s Bruen decision, Kathy Hochul is going all in on gun control in 2023.
It’s likely that we’ll see action on a wide array of bills.
But one of the most popular gun control bills right now is Assemblywoman Amy Paulin’s legislation (A-449, although it will be renumbered for this year), that would mandate a ten-day waiting period on all firearm sales!
This is absolutely asinine. Violence is out of control from Buffalo to Albany and from Watertown to NYC and Paulin wants to make it even harder for law abiding New Yorkers to buy a gun?
Obviously criminals won’t even pause if this bill becomes law, but for honest New Yorkers who don’t comply with this, we would be left facing criminal charges!
And if this bill results in New Yorkers being raped, robbed, or murdered, that’s a price that Paulin and Hochul are happy to have YOUR FAMILY pay.
Hochul’s team thinks that this bill would be constitutional according to the Bruen decision, which is one of the reasons why they like it so much.
But waiting periods are just the beginning.
Hochul’s allies in both chambers of the legislature also want to make it a crime for anyone under age 21 to be able to touch a handgun unless they are hunting!
This isn’t a hypothetical situation.
Amy Paulin filed this bill (A-412) in the Assembly last session with the support of almost a half dozen members, and there was a companion bill filed in the Senate as well (S-476.)
The implications of this bill are staggering.
Your 19-year-old son could literally be home on leave from Ft. Drum shooting one of your handguns in a backyard gun range with his friends, only to be facing criminal charges.
Or think about this.
If this law were to pass and an armed home invader forces his way into your home and tries to rape your 20-yr old adult daughter, she would be facing FELONY CHARGES for the ‘crime’ of defending herself with your handgun because she’s under 21!
Of course, any one of us would train and expect our loved ones to do what is necessary to survive an attack on their lives and deal with the consequences later — but it shouldn’t have to be that way in the first place.
Before you cast your ballot, I want to make sure you know about Assemblyman Nick Perry’s legislation that would effectively end our ability to buy handguns here in New York!
Perry’s bill (A-581) — and its Senate companion bill (S-7066) — will require gun owners to provide proof of civil liability insurance before they could apply for a pistol permit.
This is absolutely unconstitutional.
And, as Perry well knows, no company in New York State is allowed to even sell that kind of insurance, as Andrew Cuomo deemed it ‘murder insurance’ and blocked those policies when he was the governor.
So by requiring a type of insurance that is not available, Perry’s legislation would make it impossible for you and I to buy a handgun ever again.
And like the other bills above, criminals here in New York will ignore this law. More than that, they would take advantage of it, knowing that even fewer New Yorkers would be able to defend themselves on the street or in their homes.
But as bad as these bills are, that’s not even the worst one that we’ll be facing this year.
Above all else, demented Kathy Hochul wants to force gun owners to submit to a mental health exam with a state-funded psychiatrist every time we try to buy a firearm!
In other words, Hochul wants to weaponize ‘mental health staffers’ across the state to deny you and me the right to buy a firearm for any made-up reason they choose.
What would the criteria be for passing this ‘exam?’ Who knows? But it’s a sure bet that if you admit to loving America, our Founding Fathers, or our flag, you’ll be deemed a potential ‘domestic terrorist’ and be denied the right to buy a firearm.
It wouldn’t matter if you have a spotless record!
It wouldn’t matter that this ‘exam’ is blatantly biased.
It wouldn’t matter if you’ve been a gun owner for 40 years!
That’s because this legislation has nothing to do with public safety; rather, this is a tool for radical socialists in Albany who want to break the back of gun owners in this great state once and for all.
Tyrannical dictators have been doing this for well over 100 years, labeling political opponents as ‘mentally defective’ and locking them away in prison farms…or worse.
Make no mistake, Russia’s Stalin, China’s Chairman Mao, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler are clapping their hands in unison right now, urging Kathy Hochul on, as they roast in hell.
We absolutely MUST defeat this legislation!
I’m sure you can see why I’m so torn.
If any one of these bills were to pass it would be terrible for law abiding gun owners. If they all pass, the Second Amendment as we know it would be over here in New York State.
We need to do everything we can to crush ALL of them.
But I have to be realistic.
And right now, after all that we’ve been through last year, I just don’t have the funds to run a full-scale program on all four of these bills at the same time!
That’s why I’m counting on you to please fill out your NYS Firearms Association Member Ballot and tell me where to focus the resources that we have.
Of course, when you do so, you’ll notice that I have included another option on your membership ballot — an option that we haven’t talked about yet because it’s just not possible without a major influx of funds.
But I won’t lie, this is the option I hope you choose. That’s OPTION #5: FIGHT AGAINST WAITING PERIODS, FIGHT AGAINST AGE REQUIREMENTS, FIGHT AGAINST CIVIL LIABILITY INSURANCE MANDATES, AND FIGHT AGAINST MENTAL HEALTH EXAMS. DO IT ALL!
I know that’s a lot. But as you can see, there’s a lot at stake this year and we simply can’t fight without your help.
So if $100 is just too much, won’t you please agree to $50, $25, $17.76, or at least $10?
The legislature is convening in just days; I need to hear from you as soon as possible.
Please fill out your Membership Ballot right away and consider your most generous donation today! With the 2023 legislative session underway, I need to make some very difficult decisions about where to focus our resources and our time this session.
An emboldened Kathy Hochul intends to push a package of gun control bills that would obliterate the Second Amendment here in New York State — and the NYSFA doesn’t have the cash we need to fight against them simultaneously.
I need to hear from you right away. Please fill out your Membership Ballot TODAY!
After you cast your vote, please consider a generous donation to help us fight for you this year!