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The Tompkins COunty Legislature’s Public Safety Committee, in a more than two-hour-long special session, with six alternate proposals before it, hammered out a recommended resolution for the full Legislature to consider as the Tompkins County Legislature’s position on New York’s SAFE Act.

The recommendation urges the State Legislature and Governor Cuomo to re-examine the legislation using a careful and deliberate public process, amending the version that had been advanced by Legislator Mike Lane.   Proposed options before the committee ranged from urging the legislation’s repeal, as advocated by Legislator Dave McKenna and first presented to the Legislature last week, to voicing the Legislature’s full support.

Any of the other alternatives, however, may still be considered by the Legislature; they will also appear as member-filed resolutions on the agenda for the April 2 Legislature meeting.

The Committee’s recommended resolution asks Governor Cuomo and the State Legislature, through an open and public process to solicit concerns and recommendations from the public, local governments, and law enforcement agencies regarding consequences of the SAFE Act; to analyze the probable advantages and disadvantages of the recommendations using evidence-based criteria; and to consider changes to modify or eliminate all provisions that are unlikely to decrease the number of victims of gun violence, by will likely significantly burden law-abiding gun owners.

It also urges the State Legislature and Governor to provide funding for the increased costs of state agency and local recordkeeping and enforcement related to the law.

The measure was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Legislator Pamela Mackesey voting no.  Mackesey said that, in part, she could not support a resolution that failed to acknowledge support of sensible gun control legislation, as she said was the intent of the SAFE Act.

More than 50 concerned citizens turned out for the session, more than a dozen addressing the committee and others submitting written comments.  Most, again, expressed deep concern about the Act, and urged that it be scrapped and that the process start over.

Legislature Chair Martha Robertson thanked the committee for its careful and deliberative process on the issue.  Public Safety Chair Brian Robison thanked all who have commented on the issue for their concern and passion, noting that the committee has taken, and will continue to take, all views expressed into account—an approach he said he wished had been used “at the appropriate level and at the appropriate time.”

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