Your Weekly Update On Brooklyn Guns, Republicans
Guns have come under a lot of fire, you might say (sorry!) in New York lately. But you know what? Some brave souls, like the Brooklyn Young Republicans, for instance, aren’t slaves to your flighty political trends.
To prove it, they’re throwing their support behind the Staten Island Friends of NRA Banquet ($50 per ticket if you’re so inclined), which they promise will be “an evening with like-minded freedom-loving patriots” including a silent auction boasting “firearms, knives, art, jewelry, and more.”
Meanwhile State Senator Marty Golden, who represents Bay Ridge, announced new anti-gun legislation that Democrats are criticizing as not nearly anti-gun enough.
What are we to make of all this?! What would Bloomberg say?
Probably not all that much.
Even if the image of the banquet is objectively a little hilarious, Republicans supporting a wholesome-ish NRA event seems pretty par for the course.
As for Golden-gate (again, sorry!), anti-gun legislation and speechifying is super hot right now. So, actual policy aside, of course Golden wants to at the very least appear like he’s getting in on the game, and of course his political opponents want to show us every way in which he isn’t doing enough.
And for his part, Bloomberg praised Golden’s plan to target “community guns,” which help users avoid being caught with a weapon on their person and skirt potential prosecution.
The real question, it seems, will be what happens on the state level in the next legislative session, when there are upstate hunting enthusiasts to contend with, not just navel-gazing urban political squabbles. That, and if there will be any cool throwing knives to bid on at the silent auction.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
