To give you an idea what the New York State GOP thinks of reasonable gun control, a Republican congressman from upstate just removed himself from seeking re-election. His crime? The recent mass murders, including one that took place in his own district, caused him to support an array of gun control measures currently before Congress, including the banning of high-capacity magazines, age restrictions for purchasing assault weapons and public accessibility to body armor.
The New York State GOP dropped him in a heartbeat.
Representative Chris Jacobs of the 27th Congressional District was immediately excommunicated from his party and is being primaried, most notably by perennial rent-a-fool Carl Paladino. That sterling exemplar of public virtue, Rep. Elise Stefanik, taking a break from accusing the Democrats of being pedophiles, defending violent insurrectionists, and denying the president had actually won the election, immediately gave her approval to his candidacy. The loonier the better.
Paladino, it should be noted, once said he would like to see Michelle Obama “return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.” Mr. Paladino himself is now engaging in the common ritual of humiliating himself for The Former Guy’s endorsement.
The NY State Republican Party actually believes this is a more suitable candidate than Mr. Jacobs. Let that sink in.
It should be noted that Jacobs won the seat in a special election after his Republican predecessor pled guilty to the Feds for insider trading.
Mr. Jacobs had known one of the victims of the massacre, Katherine Massey, who he had served with on the Buffalo Board of Education. It is unfortunate that it takes the experience of personal misery to get an elected official to show any empathy, but that loss was too much for him to bear.
She was a good person, a good citizen, he respected her, and she was murdered for the sake of maintaining a uniquely American fetish.
Enough was enough, even for someone with an NRA endorsement, as well as support from an array of rabid Second Amendment absolutists.
Which brings us to our Jack Martins question.
Mr. Martins is the GOP candidate running for state Senate against Senator Anna Kaplan. What we need to do is probe the candidate to see where he stands on allowing children to buy high-capacity killing machines. Now far be it from me to jeopardize his candidacy with the state GOP. Personally, I would never even think of such a thing, even though it could be highly possible, if Jack just said the magic word in that game called “You Bet Your Life.”
But someone needs to ask him if he wants to be known as an enabler of mass murder on a grand scale and allowing the flooding of our state with high-powered weaponry with people wearing bullet proof vests. Or not.
I’m speculating he thinks it’s a good old “mental health” problem, even though that excuse kind of wears thin when you consider the sanity of people who think the current status quo is acceptable in a developed country.
In any case, it might be a good thing to know now, before, you know, this thing goes any further. I wouldn’t want the GOP to change candidates two weeks before the election or anything.
That could be disastrous.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
