A gun-loving Republican Congressman from New York is trying to lift the state’s ultra-strict gun laws. New York state responded swiftly to enact tough gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2013.
After that, Representative Chris Collins began working to remove those laws. In August, Collins unveiled new federal legislation called the “Second Amendment Guarantee Act,” or H.R. 3576. If passed into law, the new bill would prevent all state, county, and city governments from passing local rifle and shotgun regulations stricter than those at the federal level. (Handgun regulations, for some reason, are not mentioned in the bill.)
This would overturn New York’s four-year-old New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act — better known as the SAFE Act. The SAFE Act banned the sale or purchase of various types of automatic weapons still currently legal under federal law. It also outlawed gun magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds, and prohibited gun owners from filling their magazines with more than seven bullets.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Collins’s bill would put “millions of people at profound risks.” Collins countered in an interview with the Buffalo News, that his legislation would protect and restore the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers that were unjustly taken away by Andrew Cuomo. “I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and have fought against all efforts to condemn these rights,” Collins said. “I stand with the law-abiding citizens of this state that have been outraged by the SAFE Act and voice my commitment to roll back these regulations.”
