Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, indicated he may be open to changing a major piece of the state’s gun-control law that limits the number of bullets in a magazine to seven.
Silver suggested today that because manufacturers do not make magazines with seven bullets, lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo may need to revisit the restriction, which was part of the gun-control law 
passed Jan. 15. The prior law put the limit at 10 bullets in a magazine.
“A lot of things are being discussed,” Silver said. “It’s a question of whether no sevens are being manufactured in the state and maybe you’ll be able to use a 10 magazine with three blanks.”
Silver said it’s unclear whether any significant changes to the controversial law would be made.
“From a practical matter, we’re discussing it. I’m just saying I’m open to it,” Silver continued. “Everything in this state will better and does move better when people are open to compromise.”
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said yesterday he wants significant changes, including a change on the magazine limit.
Cuomo said yesterday he would only support technical corrections to the law, such as excluding police and film productions from an assault-weapons ban. Cuomo told reporters that changing the number of allowable bullets in a magazine would be more than a technical change.
But it’s unclear whether he would allow for new 10-bullet magazines that could only carry seven bullets, which Silver seems to be suggesting.
“I do not consider that a technical change,” Cuomo said. “If it is raising what it now says in the law about seven to 10, I don’t believe that’s a technical change.”
15 Comments
3 Blanks? Can our “leaders” be any more clueless?
The only blanks is is the mind of the dumb Demirats who still can’t figure out that the legal firearm owners in NYS are not the problem.
And Cuomo actually is still trying to pretend that he is not banning firearms, this is not about the firearm it is about power and his taking away all rights from all people, if the non firearm owners think they will be left alone they are wrong , they will come for you too.
At some point they have to start blaming the criminals again and not the law abiding , put them away and do not let the liberal Judges let them back out on the street to kill again.
The SAFE ACT should not be altered it has to be repealed and now.
You guys in NY are doomed. Sorry to tell you. Its time to move elsewhere.
Remember, Silver is the idiot who once wanted a 5,000% tax on handgun ammunition.
The thought of moving sounds good but I am running out of places to go , CO wants to ban shotguns, CA JUST WANTS TO BAN ALL GUNS , even AZ is no longer any good seeing how all the illegals are being let out of jail by crazy Homeland Napolitano.
At some point we have to start fighting back , NY is as good as anywhere else to try , at least in NY its eazy to find someone that needs to be voted out of office , once we get people off the koolaid and let them start to think themselves again.
felix – glad my fellow NY’s who are fighting with me don’t have your attitude. You can thank us all after the court throws this crap out. Thanks for your words of support.
Really?? 3 blanks?? Where did these idiots come from?? did they all take something that “jellied” their brain so they can’t read the CONSTITUTION?? Please, lets make it so politicians are not armed, and neither is their security, but civilians are!! problem solved….........
We’re allowed to load 7 in a 10 round mag as the idiotic law now stands. How is Silver’s moronic 3 blanks “compromise” anything but sleeves off his vest? Utterly meaningless. And how can Cuomo call exempting preferred classes of people from the laws substantive requirements merely a “technical change”? There is no good faith whatsoever coming from their side. No deal. Can’t wait to see the courts introduce them to the error of their ways.
The U.S. Constitution is the longest surviving document of its kind in the world. Consider that no other nation in time has grown to such incredible lengths at such a pace within the length of one document. The growing irrelevence of the Constitution is the true devil in our political mess. Politicians, against the aim of the Constitution, are now managers of the masses, rather then defenders of liberty. As a people,we have traded fundementals with responsibilty, for bureaucracy with promises. This “out-dated” Constitution is inconvenient for this political trend.
Defending our constitutional rights is our way of asserting our control against a society that is encroaching on our values and freedoms. Millions of people want firearms not only to protect themselves against physical danger but also to protect themselves from the threat of a society that is eroding their ability to control their own lives. That loss of control fuels the intense passion and explains grassroots fervor that energizes millions of 2nd amendment advocates.
We are Individualists, people who prefer a society that grants the individual more freedom and independence and leaves them more personally in control of their individual choices and values. Contrast that with the sort of society preferred by Communitarians, who feel most comfortable, and safest, in a world of shared control and communal power, a society that that sacrifices individual freedoms in the name of the greater common good. Aside from the constitutional argument this is the central conflict in the fight over gun control, a society-level conflict that ultimately asked the question” Where do we draw the line?”
This is about far more than firearms. Since the progressive era of the 60’s and 70’s, Individualists have been reacting with growing passion against what they feel is a ‘socialist’ Communitarian assault on our individual liberties. Former NRA President Charlton Heston’s ‘cold dead hands’ speech makes inescapably clear that for millions of people, the gun control debate is not about the gun as weapon, but the gun as symbol.
It is clear that the fight about firearms will not be won or lost on the battle ground of facts and figures. Gun rights are just another symbolic weapon in the deep and passionate conflict now tearing America apart, a fight over different views about the sort of society we want to live in. And that connects back to the importance of a sense of control to how safe or threatened we feel because, whether we are more Individualist or Communitarian, if our group and our philosophy are in control, our values and views have more power to shape how society operates. Unfortunately the expression of the blatant hypocrisy of the powerful elite like Cuomo and Bloomberg ignoring the constitution combined with the injustice of social disenfranchisement makes it difficult for the average American to feel secure. We see law’s bullied through the legislature that make law abiding citizens criminals, ignore our property rights and infringe on our privacy. So the disparity between the permissiveness allowed to the controlling and powerful elite and the relative impotence of the individual effectively counters the security we all could have from our constitutional republic.
Whether we like it or not Cuomo and his choices for public policy are all too readily and often overtly supported by media, and other powerful social institutions. Overall those in a socially stratified or powerful position appear to have authority to exercise extreme control to protect their own interests.
It’s ironic that the politicians that seek to limit constitutional rights and enforce that regulation through strong arm tactics cause greater alienation thus creating more fear and distrust in society not less.
The passion over the 2nd amendment and gun control is driven by one the most powerful imperatives of all, the drive to survive, which is why the feelings of 2nd amendment advocates are so fierce, and compromise impossible to achieve. To move toward progress we first have to recognize that the support of constitutional and civil rights in regards to firearms, particularly among Individualists, come from deeper instincts, honest instincts over which we have little conscious control. Rather than Cuomo stubbornly trying to impose his view of what is moral and “right” a true leader first must respects the deep instinct we share to control and shape how our society operates, and the integrity and sincerity of the values and views people on all sides hold, and work through those convictions even if we disagree with those values and views.
Without those admittedly difficult first steps, we won’t be able to find solutions to the gun risk issue, and we will be no closer to the common ground we all want. Individualists and Communitarians, gun rights advocates and gun control advocates, should all agree that we need political leaders who honor the constitution not push through laws that circumscribe the rights of millions of New Yorkers. On that issue we can all agree.
Put the blank loaded gun up to Sheldon’s his ear and pull the trigger…..
scratch that…USE LIVE AMMO
The “SAFE” (Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act was debated in closed session without committee hearings, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it into law within an hour of its passage—after waiving the required three-day public comment period. This 80 page legislation was passed late into the night… literally and figuratively under the cover of darkness. There existed no exigent need as claimed, of the Act’s 60 sections, only three (3) took effect on its adoption into law. Cuomo bragged that New York now has the “toughest assault weapons ban” in the country but claimed that the law respects the Second Amendment and preserves the rights of “hunters and sportsmen.” The former is true; the latter is not.
The most widely reported provision of the law is the total ban on the sale of military-style rifles classified as “assault weapons,” effective Jan. 15. The provision forever prohibits anyone other than a law enforcement agency from acquiring such weapons, including the popular hunting and target variants of the AR-15 rifle. Current owners of such rifles must register them with the state by 2014, and the registration must be renewed every five years. This gives the state a list of persons from which to confiscate them in the future, and the five-year renewal provision gives the state the opportunity to deny ownership once every five years. Current owners of such rifles may never sell them to another New York State resident in the future or pass them down to members of their family.
Shockingly enough, in many ways the “assault weapons ban” is actually one of the statute’s lesser infringements on the Second Amendment. The statute criminalizes, potentially criminalizes, or places under state surveillance even the most innocuous, banal, and pedestrian forms of gun ownership, and it restricts the right of self-defense. The new law prohibits the sale of any quantity of ammunition by anyone other than a licensed dealer and requires that such dealer perform a criminal background check on the purchaser and forward the purchaser’s name, address, age, and occupation, and the quantity, caliber, and make of the ammunition, to a State Police database. Thus, the ammunition database creates a de facto universal long gun registry. A hunter who purchases a box of five 12-gauge deer slugs will have the effect of documenting ownership of a 12-gauge shotgun.
The law affirmatively requires that a person’s firearms must be confiscated if any order of protection is filed against them—no matter how meager the complaint may be. It also requires that a “mental health professional” (including a physician) who believes that an individual is a danger to himself or others must report his or her diagnosis to the police for purposes of firearm confiscation. Such a diagnosis is highly subjective. But the law exempts such “professionals” from civil liability; thus, any “mental health professional can initiate the confiscation of a person’s firearms, and the gun owner is forbidden to file a civil suit to challenge the “diagnosis.”
The SAFE Act also severely infringes on the right of self-defense from criminal predation. Although Article 35 of New York Penal law allows the use of deadly force in the event of a home invasion, the SAFE Act restricts the ammunition capacity of all arms to seven rounds. If you possess a magazine loaded with more than seven rounds in your own home, you are guilty of a criminal offense. If a criminal with a stolen handgun and an illegal 15-round magazine invades your home and you shoot at him with more than eight rounds (seven plus one in the chamber), you will be criminally charged, and your magazine (and possibly your firearm) will be confiscated and destroyed without compensation, because you have now used it in the commission of a crime. Beyond that, since a handgun permit in New York is not merely a permit to carry, but a permit to possess, after you have been charged with the crime of shooting at the home invader with a high-capacity magazine, your permit will be revoked, and all of your handguns will be confiscated.
The seven-round magazine limit effectively bans or severely restricts the use of perhaps 75% of the firearms designed in the past 100 years. Seven-round
magazines simply do not exist for common firearms such as the 10-shot Ruger
10/22 rifle, five million of which have been manufactured since the 1960s.
Although the Act “grandfathers” existing ten-round magazines, it forbids owners
to put more than seven rounds in them, and it requires lawful owners of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds to sell them out of state, surrender them, or destroy them. This is clearly an unconstitutional deprivation of private property, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
The law also prohibits the private “sale” or “exchange” of any firearm to any person unless a licensed dealer performs the “sale” and a background check. The politically correct law exempts parents, spouses, children, stepchildren and “domestic partners,” but if a serial rapist and murderer is on the loose, you may not give a shotgun to your sister for self-protection. You may not give your brother or nephew a .22 rifle on Christmas Eve. The law does not clarify how long someone must be in possession of a firearm before such possession is understood to be an “exchange”; thus, it is possible that lending a rifle to your brother-in-law for deer season without a dealer transfer and a background check could be construed as an illegal exchange.” You would then be a criminal, and the gun used in the “crime” could be confiscated and destroyed.
Finally, the SAFE Act requires that gun owners report any “loss or theft” of a firearm or ammunition to the police within 24 hours. Failure to do so is a criminal offense. Read literally, a deer hunter who drops a single 12-gauge slug in the snow and cannot find it is a criminal unless he reports the loss to the police.
The New York SAFE Act is one of the most brazen assaults on the Constitution and on individual liberty in the history of the United States. Cuomo has thumbed his nose at the Supreme Court’s Heller and McDonald decisions in 2008 and 2010 affirming the right to keep and bear arms. The intent of the law is to suppress and criminalize the common use of firearms, including guns not defined as “assault weapons.” This legislation does not have the support of our law enforcement community, which Cuomo failed to consult or exempt, despite being tasked with its enforcement. In fact, the NY State Sheriffs Association has specifically opposed the act. The New York State Association of County Clerks and the New York State Association of Counties have also passed resolutions opposing the NY SAFE act. More significantly, 50 of New York’s 62 counties have either passed, or are in the process of passing, resolutions calling for the repeal of the SAFE Act, that list continues to grow. New York has the highest taxes in the nation. It is ranked as the least “business-friendly” state in the country. The implementation of this legislation is not only going to cost NY state 36 million dollars a year, it has created a hostile environment for both in-state and out of state sports men and women who now risk committing crimes for the countless technical criminal violations created by the SAFE Act for possessing items which can be purchased over the counter in all our neighboring states.
Stand and fight!!!, Repeal, repeal, no amendments!!!
Since January they’ve only admitted working on exempting the Police from this Law ….what could have happened ?
You have to think like them now and ask yourself …what’s in for them ? Why the change of heart ?
Listen , these Politicians have already proven that they can’t be trusted , they don’t care about us ..they only care about themselves and staying in control.
The only thing that’s changed here is …The Rallies , National Media attention and now 2 Supreme Court Judges giving Cuomo & NY State a month to appear and PROVE that their Gun Law is not a violation of the 2nd Amendment.
If the State cannot PROVE they are not infringing on our rights , the Court will slap an Injunction on them and Nullify the Law.
Now look at the Law …7 rounds ? No one makes a 7 round Magazine for an AR/Uzi/CETME/Sterling MkVI/Thompson/Mac10/G43/HK91/AK or even a Ruger 10-22 …as well as hundreds of other Rifles.
This means that what NY did was affect our ever being able to use any of these Semi-Auto Firearms (that we might own) as they were designed .
This can be viewed by the courts as a conspiracy against Gun Owners to effect a Ban on a broad spectrum of popular Firearms.
Which means it infringes on our rights under the 2nd Amendment
So , these elected BS artists are worried now because they know that , there’s a Huge chance the Courts will side with us ….and they’ll lose the game.
Here’s their plan –
If they suddenly work together and admit they rushed it and there were mistakes made …they can save face and decide to ALLOW us to us the 10 round Magazines.
They are not doing us a favor ..they are worried about the Courts
I have no doubt that they are hoping a maneuver like this will protect the Safe Act from being ruled as infringing on our 2nd Amendment rights.
If that happens , the whole Law gets thrown out and they get laughed at Nationwide.
They’d rather give in to a few concessions than chance losing it all.
We don’t want concessions, and we’re sick of playing games with these people..we want this illegal Fiasco Repealed .
I never thought I’d see the day that our own Politicians actually conspire against the Voters
It appears that film makers and police get special treatment and law abiding citizens can eat cake.