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NY: Pataki's foe vows to win/support for gunrights
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Pataki foe vows to win despite 'mosquito' clout
By Matthew Daneman
Democrat and Chronicle
(June 16, 2002) - It's not easy running for governor of New York.
Especially when you're running as a Republican and your name is not George Pataki.
"I'm a loser," said Louis de la Guardia Wein, who hopes to challenge Pataki for the GOP nomination as gubernatorial candidate.
"I'm a mosquito. And (yet) we're going to win. I'm positive we're going to win."
The 60-year-old Staten Island resident made a campaign stop Saturday at Washington Square Park, speaking at a Flag Day rally of the American Bikers Aimed Toward Education, Monroe County chapter.
He is trying to get 15,000 signatures to get his name on September's Republican primary ballot.
The crowd was heavy with leather- and denim-clad bikers, with a couple of politicians in suits or casual wear in the mix.
"You'll find most (bikers) are flag-waving Americans," said ABATE chapter President Brennon Miller of Irondequoit.
With a talk heavy in self-deprecating humor, Wein laid out some of his stances and platforms and positioned himself as a staunchly anti-Pataki conservative.
As well as backing gun rights, calling for abolishing the state income tax and advocating the elimination of pensions for elected officials, Wein pledged that he would do away with the state's mandatory helmet law for motorcyclists -- either that or give executive clemency to any rider convicted.
"I'm running because the issue is freedom," he said. "And the motorcycle issue is an example of how government is taking over almost every aspect of our lives. We fought a Revolutionary War to be free. And we're being socialized every day.
"The terrorists are not our greatest threat," Wein said. "It's the liberals and the secular socialists taking away our freedoms."
He also repeatedly bashed Pataki for running for re-election after pledging in his last campaign to be only a two-term governor.
"We are going down the toilet," Wein said. "And I blame the people. Seventy percent of New Yorkers don't vote."
For more on Louis Wein, go to: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/0616story11_news.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Matthew Daneman
Democrat and Chronicle
(June 16, 2002) - It's not easy running for governor of New York.
Especially when you're running as a Republican and your name is not George Pataki.
"I'm a loser," said Louis de la Guardia Wein, who hopes to challenge Pataki for the GOP nomination as gubernatorial candidate.
"I'm a mosquito. And (yet) we're going to win. I'm positive we're going to win."
The 60-year-old Staten Island resident made a campaign stop Saturday at Washington Square Park, speaking at a Flag Day rally of the American Bikers Aimed Toward Education, Monroe County chapter.
He is trying to get 15,000 signatures to get his name on September's Republican primary ballot.
The crowd was heavy with leather- and denim-clad bikers, with a couple of politicians in suits or casual wear in the mix.
"You'll find most (bikers) are flag-waving Americans," said ABATE chapter President Brennon Miller of Irondequoit.
With a talk heavy in self-deprecating humor, Wein laid out some of his stances and platforms and positioned himself as a staunchly anti-Pataki conservative.
As well as backing gun rights, calling for abolishing the state income tax and advocating the elimination of pensions for elected officials, Wein pledged that he would do away with the state's mandatory helmet law for motorcyclists -- either that or give executive clemency to any rider convicted.
"I'm running because the issue is freedom," he said. "And the motorcycle issue is an example of how government is taking over almost every aspect of our lives. We fought a Revolutionary War to be free. And we're being socialized every day.
"The terrorists are not our greatest threat," Wein said. "It's the liberals and the secular socialists taking away our freedoms."
He also repeatedly bashed Pataki for running for re-election after pledging in his last campaign to be only a two-term governor.
"We are going down the toilet," Wein said. "And I blame the people. Seventy percent of New Yorkers don't vote."
For more on Louis Wein, go to: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/0616story11_news.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
June 16, 2002, 12:44 PM EDT
BY MICHAEL VIRTANENP> Associated Press WriterP>
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ More New Yorkers bought guns last fall following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but interest so far this year appears to be waning, records show.
"That's good news perhaps, showing people are less nervous," said Albany County Clerk Thomas Clingan, who said his office saw an increase in pistol permit applications going out after hijacked jets hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In New York, handgun licensing requires fees, fingerprinting, a safety course, background checks, receipt for gun purchase, character references and approval by a judge or other designated official. The process can take six months.
In February, "in a more safety-conscious world," the Schenectady County Clerk's Office had seen about 400 pistol permit applications picked up since September, double the usual number, Clerk John Woodward said. From January through May, the office actually issued 78 new permits, up from 62 in the same period a year earlier, a 25 percent increase.
"There has been a steady increase in the number of permits that have been issued," Woodward said. "I've noticed the number of applications have slowed down."
In Genesee County, Deputy Clerk Kathy Miller said the office issued 101 pistol permits last year and is on track to issue 105 for the first six months of this year. In the western New York county, applications are going out a little more slowly now, she said.
"I don't know if there's rumors at local gun clubs that pistols and handgun permits are going to get tougher," Miller said.
Albany County's Clingan said application volume "has gone back to normal, pre-September 11th." But people with existing permits are registering more handguns, a trend that's continuing, he said.
The State Police Pistol Permit Bureau, maintaining a central information repository since 1936, had received 1,142,706 approved pistol permit applications from counties at the end of 2001, a clerk said, guessing that 75 percent of them are active.
Buying a rifle is less complicated. Under the 1998 federal Brady Act, licensed gun dealers must submit information to the FBI for a buyer background check for felony convictions, mental disability or domestic violence restraining orders, conditions that can block a sale.
From last September through January, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System recorded 96,089 checks for New York State, up 11,269 or 13.3 percent from the same five months a year earlier.
For the five-month period January through May this year, NICS did 63,983 background checks on gun buyers statewide, up 3,279 or 5.4 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Although the state's pistol permits issued outside New York City don't expire _ in the city, permits must be renewed every three years _ amendments have to be filed for additional handguns purchased. NICS checks also are required, unless a permit holder has had one in the preceding five years.
Nationally, instant checks for firearms sales by the FBI division rose 10.5 percent to 4.6 million for the September-January period from the previous year. For January-May, the increase was only 2.8 percent to almost 3.3 million checks.
Gun sales are also cyclical, rising during fall hunting season and into the gift-giving holidays then dropping in January, said Paul Erhardt, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. He said the NICS checks reflect retail sales, but not precisely since some states don't require them for handguns, and one background check could cover up to three guns.
Tom King, head of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, offered one theory on why gun sales rose after Sept. 11. "Maybe it's that people started realizing that the government can't protect them, and they're doing something to protect themselves," he said.
King didn't know of any new gun owners who would want to talk about it publicly. "For the most part, people who are shooters ... they're kind of self-reliant. They're private individuals."
The National Rifle Association two years ago reported 170,980 members in New York state. National NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the numbers are up slightly now but he declined to say how much.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--handguns0616jun16.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
TED SHAFFREY
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Residents and lawmakers angrily denounced a right-wing rabbi's plan to organize armed civilian patrols in heavily Jewish neighborhoods that were considered as terror targets.
"You are here to take advantage of our community. Go back home. We will fight against you," state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Sunday. His district includes Borough Park, one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that would be patrolled by the armed groups.
Rabbi Yakove Lloyd, president of the right-wing Jewish Defense Group, called a news conference Sunday to explain details of his patrols, which were planned to begin Sunday night with groups carrying shotguns, baseball bats, pipes, cellular phones and walkie-talkies.
He promised a crowd of 100 supporters but showed up alone.
Instead, Lloyd was shouted at by Hikind, Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder and a few dozen members of the shomrin, a community group that patrols neighborhoods with cellular phones.
"When you get people like Lloyd in the community ... it gives us all a bad name, and it gives someone who wants to attack the community an open hand," said Abe Weinreb, a shomrin member.
Lloyd said the armed patrols were conceived in response to comments that fugitive Abdul Rahman Yasin made during an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" on June 2.
"We're not here to hurt anybody," he said Sunday. "I ... heard Yasin say the original (Trade Center) targets were Jews in Brooklyn, so I was concerned and I was nervous for my people."
Yasin, who is sought by the FBI in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said from Iraq that he and his accomplices originally targeted heavily Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. They later decided to attack the twin towers because they believed most occupants were Jewish, Yasin said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said last week that armed vigilantes would be arrested.
Lloyd said his patrol members had the proper gun licenses.
"We are allowed to carry firearms if we have permits and licenses," Lloyd said Sunday.
The Jewish Defense Group was founded by Lloyd in 1985, and follows the principles of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the right-wing Jewish Defense League.
In January, JDL chairman Irv Rubin and a group member were charged with conspiring to blow up a mosque and the office of an Arab-American congressman in California. They have pleaded innocent.
Kahane was assassinated by an Islamic extremist at a New York ballroom in 1990. http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/3483040.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
I doubt he will win, considering the citizens of New York enjoy and insist on going through life with shackles on.
"The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal governmentare few and defined, and will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiation, and foreign commerce"
-James Madison