Boondocks No. 64

Happy Gun Day at the Capitol.

It's the New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV) day here at the Capitol, and that means that the Assembly will be passing several symbolic measures, including 50-caliber ban, gun locks mandate, micro-stamping, more insurance mandates on gun sellers, "fake assault" weapons ban, among other measures.

The State Senate will ever so quietly let those silly and redundant measures just go out to pasture and die. Which is good, because every goes home happy. The gun control people get their bills passed and their ego stroked by the Assembly. They'll then go out and hopefully vote for Democrats. Gun rights advocates, get the bad legislation killed.

You can watch the show starting today as 2:00 PM on the Assembly AV Website. Expect lots of pandering from both sides of the aisle.

Bloomberg's 10-Point Code for Walmart.

It looks like if you buy a gun from Walmart they will be a taping you.

1. Videotaping the Point of Sale for All Firearms Transactions. Participating retailers will videotape the point-of-sale of all firearms transactions and maintain videos for 6 months to deter illegal purchases and monitor employees.

2. Computerized Crime Gun Trace Log and Alert System. Mayors Against Illegal Guns will develop a computerized system that participating retailers will implement over time to log crime gun traces relating to the retailer.

Once the program is in place, if a customer who has a prior trace at that retailer attempts to purchase a firearm, the sale will be electronically flagged. The retailer would have discretion to proceed with the sale or stop the sale.

3. Purchaser Declaration. For sales flagged by the trace alert system, participating retailers will ask purchasers to fill out a declaration indicating that they meet the legal requirement to purchase the firearm.

4. Deterring Fake IDs. Participating retailers will only accept valid federal- or state-issued picture IDs as primary identification. Retailers will utilize additional ID checking mechanisms.

5. Consistent Visible Signage Consistent Visible Signage. Participating retailers will post signage created by the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership to alert customers of their legal responsibilities at the point-of-sale.

6. Employee Background Checks Employee Background Checks. Participating retailers will conduct criminal background checks for all employees selling or handling firearms.

7. Employee Responsibility Training. Participating retailers will participate in an employee responsibility training program focused on deterring illegal purchasers. The Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership will create an online training system based on Wal-Mart’s training program.

8. Inventory Checking. Participating retailers will conduct daily and quarterly audits. Guidelines will be based on Wal-Mart’s existing audit procedures.

9. No Sales Without Background Check Results. Participating retailers would prohibit sales based on “default proceeds,” which are permitted by law when the background check has not returned a result within 3 days.

10. Securing Firearms. Participating retailers will maintain firearms kept in customer accessible areas in locked cases or locked to racks.

Read The Daily Politics Blog from the NY Daily News.

Senate to Pass Microstamping?

Marty Golden seems to think that the Senate will pass this problematic bill, following the lead of the state Assembly on gun control day on Monday.

That's because lawmakers are poised to mandate that semiautomatic handguns sold in New York be equipped with microstamp technology that marks each cartridge casing.

Proponents say it would allow police to better match weapons and cartridges. But opponents maintain the technology is unreliable, potentially costly and would not affect stolen and smuggled weapons.

The requirement, if it becomes law, would go into effect in 2010. The Assembly passed a microstamping bill on Monday and at least one senator said the Senate would likely pass a similar measure within the next couple of weeks.

Senator Volker, who would have to approve such a bill through his codes committee took a dimmer view of such legislation.

"Upstate and downstate differ on Second Amendment issues," said Craig Miller, spokesman for Sen. Dale Volker, R-Depew, who heads the codes committee, which would likely examine such a bill in the Senate. "We haven't even seen the language ... we'd like to take a closer look at it."

The Sporting Arms and Ammuniation Manufacturers Association had this to to say about California's law, similar to what New York is proposing:

California’s legislature is considering requiring all new handguns beginning in January 2007 to micro-imprint to shell casings when fired the make, model and serial number of the firearm. SAAMI opposes this "microstamping" legislation. The concept is based on a faulty assumption that it will be effective in reducing the criminal misuse of firearms. Among the many reasons why microstamping is a bad idea is that criminals can simply file away the laser-engraved information, defeating its effectiveness. Criminals could acquire spent cases from a shooting range and leave them for police to find at a crime scene. Also, normal usage and cleaning by law-abiding gun owners can wear away the laser engravings. Clearly, microstamping is not a reliable crime-prevention tool. The economic impact on law enforcement, military, civilians and the industry, and the fact that microstamping is a sole-source technology that the legislature should not mandate before a thorough objective and independent study is undertaken are more reasons why SAAMI is opposed to this legislation.

Another is this study that suggests that microstamping analysis to flawed at best, suffering from the same problems that much other forms of ballistic analysis suffer from. Marks are easily obscured with a file or misfire that would not leave a clear print.

See bill number A.9819 for details on what New York is proposing.

Read Gun measure caught in political cross fire in the Times Union.

Chrysler to Build Nissan Titan Replacement.

It seems that Nissan will drop their big truck and in exchange sell a re-branded Dodge Ram, and Chrysler will sell a re-branded small Nissan for it's line up.

Chrysler, which is based in Auburn Hills, Mich., and has been cutting truck production as demand falls for less fuel-efficient vehicles, will make a full-size pickup based on the Dodge Ram for Nissan at a factory in Saltillo, Mexico. In turn, Nissan will assemble a small car for Chrysler in Oppama, Japan. Both vehicles will be sold in North America, though Chrysler plans to sell the car in Europe and other markets, too.

Read Chrysler and Nissan Agree to a Vehicle-Building Pact in the New York Times.

Attorney General files Civil Suit Against Lewis Farm.

Apparently Cuomo's office is trying to force Lewis Farm to demolish the structures that they built to house farm workers.

The APA claims that they did not get the necessary permits to build the housing, more grandeous then standard farm worker housing. The Lewis' claim that they don't need a permit, because the town said they didn't, and that in most cases the APA didn't require a permit for farm worker housing.

So now the Attorney General is getting involved to try to enforce the law.

It should be interesting to see how this all resolves itself. Certainly the park needs to be protected from excessive development. But also, we want to see the park as a working park, including highly successful working farms, that are low impact on the land. Getting quality farm housing is essential to attracting the kind of dedicated people you want farming the land.

Having quality people taking care of the land is important in the Adirondack Park. Nitrogen pollution is a real preventable concern, that can be mitigated through careful planning and some care. The evidence is that this is legitimate farm worker housing, and is not luxury housing just for the rich, trying to avoid APA rules.

BFT: To Protect and Serve Tough.

There is this website called BFT: To Protect and Serve Tough with some rules and videos you have to watch.

This is their mission statement:

Built Ford Tough is a mantra for truck and owner alike. F-Series leaves no room for compromise. Its reputation for toughness has been earned on the farms, work sites and roads across America. So, if you’re going to drive the toughest truck, then you’ve got a responsibility to man-up and do your part. There’s a code of conduct when you’re behind the wheel of an F-Series. We’re here to enforce it. We’re here to protect and serve the brand.

In pursuit of their mission statement, the BFT Police enforce the following rules for Ford Truck drivers:

1) NO ROLLER LUGGAGE
2) NO SCOOTERS
3) NO PUNY DOGS
4) NO MEAT SUBSTITUTES
5) NO PINK SHIRTS
6) NO FANCY COFFEE
7) NO FANNY PACKS
8) NO CUTESY CELL PHONE RINGS
9) NO MANICURES
10) NO HAIR PRODUCTS

Good to know, so the next time I'm pulled over by an officer driving a black Ford F-150 pickup truck. Of course, it would probably just be one of my jackass friends who are fireman, and want to show off how they have a vastly better truck then my piece of shit Ford Ranger.

The F-250 that the state Forest Rangers have are all very nice. A top DEC bureaucrats get to drive them around too—and many of them are powered by natural gas to make them even cleaner.

You must go visit BFT: To Protect and Serve Tough and watch these videos.

Be Careful With Fire.

It should be obvious now with many areas drying out without greening up that the risk of brush and fields fires is pretty high.

This happens every spring.

Yesterday, some 49 acres burned in Renselearville on a farm off Hale Road where somebody was burning some trash and it set the dry grass on fire unbenownst to the person inside.

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I would say that person is not at negligent as some people are, lighting up some trash in a burn barrel and then driving off to town, only to find their house is gone when they get back. But still this didn't have to happen.

It's so easy to catch grass on fire this time of year. I remember as a teenager, doing what many teenagers do, with gasoline and their kid toys one spring morning. While I was fortunate enough to put out the relatively small grass fire I started (I was monitoring the fire carefully), it really woke me up to the fire danger of this season.

Currently the following counties in the area have complete fire bans, prohibiting all open burning, be it campfires, brush piles, or even just burning the day's trash out back. Failure to obey can be a class-B misdemeanor.

• Montgomery
• Schoharie
• Rennselear (Advisory Only)

Even if you live in a county, like Albany or Saratoga or Greene without a burn ban you should be using commonsense with any kind of fire right now—and any time.

The obvious things are cleaning the land around your fire or the burn barrel, or burning in a gravel pit or other place away from grass and overhanging trees. Certainly don't leave your burn barrel sitting on the ground next to dry grass. Always monitor the fire, and make sure it's pretty much out should you go any distance from it.

The Oregon Department of Forestry has a nice website on fire safety tips.

I also realize that people will continue to be morons with fire. For many rural folks, taking trash out to the burn barrel is as much a part of the routine as taking the trash to the curb, and is without any thought—despite the fact that the same fire that will burn your Dorittos wrapper you've thrown out will burn down your house.

Moreover, trash fires tend smell bad so you don't exactly want to stand next to them breathing in the toxins, and they can smolder for a long time, posing a fire threat. Regardless, be very careful.

$1 Million to Swept from Snowmobile Trail Fund.

The state decided that to balance it's budget, and not raise the tax on illegal drug pushers, it would instead take money from the snowmobile clubs.

To help balance last year's budget, the state grabbed $1 million last month from an account paid for by snowmobile registration fees for the maintenance of trails — and snowmobilers believe it's unfair and want it back.

“It was an illegal thing to do and a wrong thing to do,” Jim Meyer, president of the Hilton Snow Flyers snowmobile club near Rochester, said Wednesday. “That money they took came from all registered snowmobilers in the state and out of state. It's not supposed to be used for any other purpose.”

Scott Sherwood, president of the Trumansburg-based Twin Lakes Snowmobile Association, said this was his fear all along when he learned the state was involved.

“We've known all winter we were going to be shorted,” he said. “If they keep taking our money, what's the point of registering our snowmobiles?”

The snowmobile fund was one of dozens of special funds “swept” by the Paterson administration, with the permission of the Legislature, to raise $100 million to help balance the state budget last year as falling state revenues opened a budget hole.

This was the same legislature which decided that creating a crack tax, on convicted drug pushers would not work—despite predictions that it would raise $14 million.

While it is true that the fund is raising more then they are spending in disbursements to snowmobile clubs per the law, that doesn't mean snowmobilers should be giving up their money to the state:

The snowmobile-trails fund was picked because it had a balance of $5.5 million, and only $4.38 million is planned to be spent this year — which will be offset by about the same amount of new revenue, he said.

“Given the fact that there was a substantial balance in the account, making this money available to the general fund would not have an impact on current or future trail-maintenance efforts,” Anderson said.

That's not the case, said the executive director the state Snowmobilers' Association.

“It's definitely going to have an impact on the clubs' ability to maintain trails and it will have an impact on safety,” said the club official, Jim Jennings.

Clubs now are paid as much as $325 per mile by the state from the fund to mark and maintain their most-used trails. That figure was $500 a mile two years ago, said Jennings, who added that the money goes mostly for signs, gas for grooming machines and brush-clearing.

Overall, the state has about 11,000 miles of snowmobile trails, and the 236 snowmobile clubs in the state have more than 65,000 members, according to Jennings.

Members of the clubs pay $35 annually for their snowmobile registrations, and non-members $90, Anderson said.

The Hilton club has 127 miles of trails, but the state reimbursement covers maintenance of only 70 of them, Meyer said. “We still have to sign and rake and (remove) brush from the rest,” he said.

Trail fund raids are nothing new to either ATV riders or snowmobilers. But it's still obnoxious, especially when people are paying a specific fee with a clear intent to be spent only for the construction and maintenance of snowmobile trails.

To make it more obnoxious, snowmobile clubs are private organizations, a bit with a unique partnership with the state. To register or insure a snowmobile, you usually do it with a snowmobile certified by the NYSSA, a private organization overseeing snowmobile clubs. The registration form is the NYSSA form.

Then the money goes to the state, part to cover the cost of registration, and part for the snowmobile dedicated fund. That money is supposed to be disbursed, in it's entirety, to snowmobile clubs, following the formula described in law. The only problem is there ain't enough miles of snowmobile trail to fully disburse the money at the current reduced rate of $325/mile trail per year.

It wouldn't be such a problem if the state hadn't cut the reimbursement rate a few years back under the restructuring of the snowmobiling program (which is insane now with the high price of gasoline) or if there wasn't so much money flowing into the trail fund.

Normally, I don't have a problem with them flushing out unused money from accounts at the end of the fiscal year. If the money was taken from the general fund and transfered into a specific use, then moved back, then so be it.

But the snowmobile trail dedicated fund clearly did not get it's initial finances from the general fund (even if the state legislature to initially create it and it's administered by the state).

Some of this bad deal might be due to the change of leadership of the Assembly Tourism Committee. Joe Morelle and his top staff did a fantastic job on snowmobile (and a lesser extent on ATVs) issues, developing consent in a body not predisposed to be interested in motorized recreation.

In contrast, I don't see the same kind of passion on behalf of Assemblyman Englebright of Long Island. Englebright tends to emphasize environmental protection over economic development and any kind of motorized recreation. Moreover, he'd rather spend money on history-related projects more then the kinds of recreation enjoyed in upstate New York.

Read Million Dollar Sweep from Snowmobile Trail Program in the Ithaca Journal.