Rare News Desk
The New York State legislature passed the NY SAFE Act in 2013 as a response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a slew of rules and regulations into law that made it more difficult for citizens to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.
Aaron Weiss was a soldier in Iraq. Now that he’s home, he works as a police officer in upstate New York. He made a speech at the New York legislature, petitioning for the repeal of the NY SAFE Act, IJ Review reports.
Weiss took issue in particular with the fact that politicians were being praised for their courage and strength for passing this bill.
“[I]f it was really so courageous a bill, and it took so much courage to pass it, then why was it done in the middle of the night when no one could see it or read it?” Weiss asked. “That’s not courage. That’s a mafia style sit-down to divvy up what’s good for the bosses.”
Below is the full transcript of his speech.
Hello. My name is Aaron Weiss and I live in the town of Poughkeepsie. I am a combat veteran of Iraq and I am also a law enforcement officer. I attended the Public Safety Committee’s last meeting in regard to this last resolution but I didn’t say anything because I wanted to hear what everyone else had to say.
And I heard some shocking things from some people and some legislators. They said that it took a lot of courage to pass The Safe Act. Apparently, my definition of courage differs from yours. You see, if it was really so courageous a bill, and it took so much courage to pass it, then why was it done in the middle of the night when no one could see it or read it? That’s not courage. That’s a mafia style sit-down to divvy up what’s good for the bosses.
Courage is taking the right and true course of action, not the politically expedient one. And, anyone who is proud of this law must also be proud of the patriot act, the TSA, imprisoning Japanese citizens in World War II since all these actions were spurred on by emotional fear and rammed through in the name of public safety.
Another issue is the insistence of certain people to stand on the graves of dead children and challenge those that disagree to say it to the parents’ faces. Well, I, for one, will pick up that gauntlet. First off, why is “dead children” your battle cry? You didn’t say anything about the hundreds of Chicago children being killed and for some reason you only screamed when it happens to wealthy white ones. And yes, I’ll say to anyone’s face, my right is more important than your dead, because I fought for it first hand.
I washed the blood of my friends out of my humvee and I picked up their mangled bodies and I fought day in and day out. I did more things than people can imagine. So, yeah, my right trumps your dead. I earned it in blood. I gave up a lot for this country, including my youth, and better men than me gave up a whole lot more so that all of you, myself included can enjoy the rights that are guaranteed to us in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We didn’t go through all of that to come back home and watch you surrender what we fought for happen based on the demented actions of a couple of mad men.
So, in closing, I would like to address specifically the legislators we all know who are going to vote against this resolution. I understand you all vote against this resolution based on some misguided sense of the public good. However, as a law enforcement officer I am curious to know about your true resolve.
Since voting to takeaway someone’s rights is totally different than being asked to enforce it, I want you to consider this. If you support The Safe Act so whole heartedly, are you willing to stand with the law enforcement members who lead from the front to enforcement? What I mean by that is if a constituent of yours feels so alienated by this law and the manner in which it was passed and they refuse to comply with it, are you willing to stack up on their front door and go in first? I bet if a clause was in this bill that required you, the elected leadership, our elected leaders to go in the door first, I bet you would not be so steadfast.
