Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act of 2013 into law.

It was understandable that he wanted to put legislation in place because of all the violence that has been associated with guns. Recent events like the Sandy Hook and Aurora shootings were terrible tragedies and resonated with a lot of people.

It seemed right for Cuomo to act quickly and try to do his best to try to prevent any tragedy like that from happening again, but I don’t think he went about it the right way.

The SAFE Act didn’t seem to be very well thought out. In fact, I think Cuomo saw the opportunity to make New York the first state to sign a gun control bill into legislation after these tragedies. He just threw something together to try and make himself and the state of New York look good in the national eye.

There should have been honest, open, and informed discussions between the Governor, the state government and the people of the state. Instead, the bill was thrown together quickly and forced upon the people.

All that this law really does is punish the people that already own guns legally by placing restrictions on them. Some of the provisions of it have been criticized and it has even been argued that the law is unconstitutional.

One outrageous provision of the bill is that adding a pistol grip to your gun (which does nothing to change the power or bullets in a gun) qualifies it as an assault weapon.

You can be charged with a misdemeanor if authorities feel that you aren’t storing your “assault weapon” in a safe way. Even if you are storing the weapon safely in your eyes, it doesn’t matter one bit if it does not meet the standards of the government.

It was legislated that you couldn’t own or buy a magazine that held more than seven bullets. If you possessed a magazine for more than seven bullets, you had a year to sell it to someone out of the state or dispose of it. Since magazines that hold seven bullets or fewer aren’t commonplace, this provision was altered so that if you already own a magazine that holds more than seven bullets, you can keep it as long as you don’t have more than seven bullets in it. If you do and are caught, you could be charged with a misdemeanor.

You can carry as many magazines as you want as long as they don’t have more than seven bullets in them. If Cuomo was trying to limit the amount of ammunition a person could have on them at one time, he clearly didn’t think it out too well.

Before the SAFE Act, you paid a one-time fee and you got your pistol permit. Now, you will have to re-certify every five years to be sure that you are still able to legally own a gun. Which could eventually lead to more and more fees for a person who is trying to do the right thing and legally own the gun.

Not to say that legal gun owners are perfect, but most of the time people who own or obtained guns illegally are the ones committing crimes. Putting a law into place that puts restrictions on people who legally own guns to try to fix to fix the problem of people owning guns illegally has the opposite effect. It turns legal gun owners into criminals unless they follow the outrageous provisions of that bill.

The New York Safe Act needs to not only be reformed but it needs to be repealed. It is an unconstitutional infringement, which our second amendment right was meant to protect us from.

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