Tonight, at a regularly scheduled monthly town board meeting, the Shandaken Town Board will vote on a resolution opposing New York State's recently enacted gun control legislation.
If adopted, the resolution will have no legal force. Such resolutions -- like a recent one passed by the Town of Woodstock in support of criminalizing hydrofracking -- serve only to send a message to state and federal officials about where a municipal governing body stands on an issue.
The resolution, dubbed "Resolution In Support of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution," has been offered by town board member Vincent Bernstein, who ran on the Republican, Conservative and Independence tickets in the 2011 election. An excerpt:
WHEREAS , the Town of Shandaken Town Board believes there are many other less intrusive means available, other than rash, confusing and inarticulately drafted firearms laws that would effectively control, manage and reduce violence in our society, such as mental health reforms, anti-bullying programs in our schools, the enforcement of the existing laws to the fullest extent possible, the addressing of the universal availability of extremely violent video games and movies to our youth and the proper psychological counseling for those in need or who request it;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED , that the Town Board of the Town of Shandaken does hereby oppose the enactment of any legislation that would infringe upon the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms and consider such laws to be unnecessary and beyond lawful legislative authority granted to our State representatives, as there is no documented correlation between gun control measures and crime reduction.
The full text of the resolution is included in the agenda for tonight's meeting, which is embedded below. The meeting will be held at 7pm in the Shandaken Town Hall.
In addition to broadcasting meetings on local public-access television, Shandaken has begun videocasting its town meetings on YouTube. Check the Town of Shandaken YouTube channel after the meeting for video of the proceedings.
Shandaken Town Board meeting agenda, 2/4/2013 by Watershed Post
