Now I turn towards one of the good guys, in my opinion, to the Honorable Steven F. McLaughlin. He is quite articulate in laying out what is wrong with this law and is opposed to its passage. There are five videos total. Like with the previous transcripts from the Honorable Thomas J. Abinanti, I will do the excerpted videos first followed by the complete video and transcript of his closing statement.
This is also a video where you get to hear some more statements from Joe Lentol, the chairman and sponsor of this law.
Video #4: Steven F. McLaughlin - The Reason for the NY Gun Law
Begin Transcript
Steven F. McLaughlin: Uh, so far, there's earlier in the debate, 57 sections of law that were amended, right? Plus various chapter, uh, amendments. So we've got some issues with this bill already which I think speaks to why we don't rush things or why we should not rush things. Would you agree with that or not agree? I mean if, do you think this law as it is written right now is complete?
Joe Lentol: I agree that in a perfect world we should have extended hearings, and we should try to have as perfect a piece of legislation as can be had on the books. I also believe that when we have a pile-up of events like what happened in Wisconsin and Aurora and then it strikes close to home in Newtown, Connecticut, that, uh, this cries out for action. And if the Federal government is not going to do, as I said before, then the state of New York has to one again, like it has in the past, lead the way.
Steven F. McLaughlin: So but there is no indication that the Federal is not going to take action, they are in fact, on the verge of taking action shortly. Was this not just a rush to get something done so that we could have bragging rights across the state because clearly there's a lot of problems with this bill that could have been taken care of before printing this a couple of hundred times, rolling it out to the population of New York under cover of darkness without the details being hashed out. This is like half-cooking the meal and then everybody gets food poisoning from it because it's not done correctly. There's a lot that could have been done.
Joe Lentol: The Governor is trying to save lives and I have to commend him for that.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Well let's talk about that. Let's talk about saving lives. As my colleague pointed out, 769 homicides, which have been dropping year after year after year. Now I know next year when they drop again, people will talk about how this ban did it. It won't have anything to do with it, hardly, because only 5 were caused by long guns. Long guns. Not assault rifles, may have been 5 at maximum, might have been 2, might have been 1, might have been none. We don't know. But it was 5.
So if this is about saving lives, why aren't you going after handguns, which are by and large overwhelmingly the problem and overwhelmingly the weapon of choice among gang members? Why not? Doesn't that sort of lack a little bit of integrity to going after point f..., (Lentol interrupts) hold on...
Joe Lentol: We are going after handguns. I, you know, we are going after handguns. We've done that before and we're doing it again in this bill.
Steven F. McLaughlin: What handguns?
Joe Lentol: We've made it a C violent felony to have a handgun in the state of New York.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Illegally.
Joe Lentol: Illegally.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Yeah.
Joe Lentol: Isn't that what you're talking about?
Steven F. McLaughlin: So you think that the criminals are going to pay attention to that now it's a class C felony?
Joe Lentol: So what do you wanna do? You wanna make it...
Steven F. McLaughlin: I, I'm simply saying that you're making the point that you wanna save lives and if you were truly interested in doing that, you'd be having an argument about banning all weapons, number one, which I don't agree with, but you'd be having that argument...
Joe Lentol: (laughter)
Steven F. McLaughlin: That would, yeah, that would, that would be an actually valid argument to have that we should ban all weapons, be a complete violation of the 2nd Amendment, but apparently that's trivial any more.
But what I'm saying here is, it, it lacks a little bit, or it smacks a little bit of grandstanding to say that we're gonna to go after these assault weapons, which cause statistically across the nation and it's the same holds true in New York, assault weapons are used in one-fifth, point two percent of all violent crimes and in about 1 percent of all gun crimes. 1 to 7 percent of all homicides in the US are caused by assault weapons. So don't kid yourself that we're going after the real issue here because we're not. (shrugs).
Joe Lentol: There's nobody grandstanding here especially not the Governor. Um, you know, I agree with you. I'm in favor of the 2nd Amendment. I'm gonna surprise you. I'm in favor of the 2nd Amendment. I believe that, uh, in the Constitution. I also believe in the preamble that I won't read. But more importantly, we have to remember the Constitution was amended back when they used muskets. Ok? With one shot being able to be fired by a musket and then you had to reload.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Yup.
Joe Lentol: Remember that?
Steven F. McLaughlin: I absolutely do. Do you know why?
Joe Lentol: Remember that because...
Steven F. McLaughlin: Because that was the state-of-the-art weapon of the day, Joe.
Joe Lentol: That's right. Our Constitution has to expand.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Gotcha.
Joe Lentol: As the times call for it.
Steven F. McLaughlin: So the Constitution was also rented, written and distributed on a printing press so are we saying we should limit the freedom of speech, because you know, the Internet and text messaging and everything else, that's just not what they intended.
Joe Lentol: Supreme Court of the United States renders decisions every day that interprets the Constitution and expands its applicability to, to today's times.
Steven F. McLaughlin: Oh, you're right and they've ruled three times now, that the right of the people to defend themselves cannot be infringed. Which I believe is exactly what we're doing. I believe this is just arbitrary...
Joe Lentol: There's (inaudible) in the 2nd Amendment
Steven F. McLaughlin: Why did we not come up with a 5 round limit or a 2 or a 1. Why 7? What's the magic number there at 7?
Joe Lentol: The Governor proposed 7, we thought it was reasonable and so did the Senate.
Steven F. McLaughlin: I'll be back.
End Transcript
The contrast between Mr. McLaughlin and Mr. Abinanti to be quite striking. I prefer Mr. McLaughlin's speaking style. I also find Mr. Lentol's body language and demeanor to be condescending, like having to deal with this issues is a foregone conclusion and pesky questions such as raised by Mr. McLaughlin need to just go away.
Mr. McLaughlin gets in some good points and I find Mr. Lentol's tone with him to be offensive. As the Governor's spokesman apparently, Mr. Lentol sees no limit on restricting the 2nd Amendment since apparently that particular amendment needs to have a limited interpretation to deal with modern times but the 1st Amendment is perfectly fine to expand beyond the printing press.
This is the problem I find with a liberal reading of our rights. Depending on what you believe in, you favor expansion on one side and contraction on the other. This isn't political thermodynamics here. These are our rights. How can I have an expansive reading the 1st Amendment in keeping with technical advances, keep the 2nd Amendment mired in the 18th century because clearly it was too dangerous to allow modern applicability and find for a right to abortion, which while I gratefully agree with it, exists in the shadows and penumbras of the Constitutional text and requires special insight to divine. And yet we protect that unwritten right more than for someone like me to protect myself from harm. All because men like Joe Lentol feel 7 rounds is perfectly adequate.
Oh well, at least he's not Thomas J. Abinanti, who feels one shot is perfectly fine.
Here's hoping you don't miss.
D.K.
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