By Kimberly Redmond , The Journal News 7:36 p.m. EST December
19, 2016
The show is scheduled for Jan. 21
and 22.
The
planned return of a gun show to the Westchester County Center after a four-year
hiatus has local Democrats calling for the county to reinstate an earlier ban
on such expos.
County
Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, lifted the ban in 2010, after it had been
put in place by his predecessor, Democrat Andrew Spano, following the 1999
massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.
However,
after a gunman murdered 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, Astorino canceled a show scheduled
for February 2013 at the center, and there hasn't been one since.
That'll
change next month, when Westchester Collectors which has hosted gun shows
since the early 1980s at the venue, returns with a 350-table sportsman firearm
and knife show/sale on Jan. 21 and 22.
On
sale will be modern, antique and collectible firearms, ammunition, handguns,
knives, military-style weapons, books and gun-related memorabilia.
But not if longtime gun show critic Paul Feiner has something to say
about it.
"I
am very upset that a gun show is being scheduled for the County Center in
January, right after Donald Trump's inauguration as president," said
Feiner, the Democratic town supervisor of Greenburgh. "I don't believe
that gun shows should be held in government buildings. The county should not
encourage people to purchase guns. If people want to buy guns they should
purchase guns elsewhere at private locations."
Feiner
called again Monday for the county to reinstate the ban on firearms and
gun shows in county facilities. He made similar requests following a mass
shooting last year at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and after the Sandy
Hook Elementary massacre.
"It's
bad policy to take tax dollars from this controversial industry," said
county Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers. "It's
bad taste to have a gun show with Sandy Hook next door. And, it's bad faith for
the county executive to sneak this in when everyone is off celebrating the
holidays and the New Year. It's outrageous and I'll be supporting legislation
to ban it and I believe we have the majority votes needed."
Kapolowitz
added that it's "not acceptable" that he only learned the show
had been scheduled when The Journal News/lohud contacted him Monday for a
comment, rather than by the county offices.
Beyond
confirming the event, "We don't have a general comment other than that
this sportsmen's show has been well-run and well-attended in the past and we
hope and expect that the upcoming show will be every bit as successful,"
said Philip Oliva, a spokesman for the county executive's office.
The
show is hosted in conjunction with the NRA, and its organizers told attendees to
be prepared to undergo the background checks required by law to buy any
firearms at the event.
A
listing for the show does not appear on the county center's website,
which touts a circus and a home show among other upcoming events.
Oliva
said the person who handles those listings was out last week and it should be
online in a few days. He said the gun show has been advertised on the
electronic marquee outside the County Center since last week.
The
county is expected to receive $23,000 from Westchester Collectors to rent the
space, along with $2 per admission ticket sold, according to Astorino's office.
In
2015, a petition calling for a ban on gun shows at the County Center didn't go
far, with Astorino saying he had no plans to limit firearms shows there and
that the county would consider a request made by a licensed operator in the
future. An October 2015 proposal by Democrats on the
Board of Legislators for the ban never advanced.
Noting
Astorino's ambitions of one day holding state office, Feiner said, "He
thinks it'll help him upstate by appealing to right-wing Republicans,
rather that what the people in Westchester want, which is no guns in government
buildings."
Feiner
said he would send a letter to Astorino and the Board of Legislators on
Tuesday, urging them to cancel the show.
