Cairo, Durham oppose SAFE Act - The towns of Cairo and Durham have joined New Baltimore and Greene County in passing a resolution stating their opposition to New York’s controversial gun control law known as the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act. The law, passed in January in less than a day using a message of necessity from Governor Andrew Cuomo, is one of the most restrictive guns laws in the country. It broadens the definition of banned “assault” rifles, imposes a seven-round limit on magazines, increases penalties for illegal gun possession, expands background check requirements, reduces public access to gun permit information and allows mental health professionals to report gun-owning patients they fear might harm themselves or others.

Putnam mom petitions county on SAFE Act opposition - The dialogue about gun reform that a Philipstown mother-of-two and 500 others wanted to have with their representatives in Putnam County government following the shooting deaths of 26 first-graders and teachers at a Connecticut school will take place instead in May. Alexandra Dubroff, 38, of Nelsonville, the organizer of a 500-name petition, has been appealing to Putnam County lawmakers to open the dialogue since February, when the county Legislature voted to oppose New York’s new gun reform law. The vote took place without public debate.

Owens: Federal assault rifle ban will fail in Congress - A federal ban on assault rifles will not pass Congress, said U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, on Tuesday.  “Nothing else will come out of the Senate, and absent of the Senate, it won’t happen,” he said at a “Congress on Your Corner” forum at Crandall Public Library.  By “nothing else,” he was referring to nothing other than legislation to toughen penalties for people who legally buy firearms to give to someone else to use in a crime or who is barred from owning guns, and legislation to enhance federal background checks.