Hochul’s fate rests on crime
With the first gubernatorial Democratic primary debate behind us, I can definitely say maybe Gov. Kathy Hochul will keep her job.
On the merits, she earned a B- in the first debate, mostly fending off arrows. But realistically she has scads more money in her campaign fund than her rivals, which means she must be popular with somebody, probably lobbyists, and she has the wherewithal to buy popularity.
While she lacks much of a record or wide personal recognition since she’s been governor for only six months, Hochul is certainly better known than her rivals Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi. And she is the incumbent. That means a lot.
But then there’s the latest Siena Poll of New York City residents — half of the state’s voting population — mostly on how poorly Eric Adams is doing as mayor of New York. There is a single how-am-I-doing question about Hochul’s job performance embedded. Her numbers are not much better than the mayor’s.
Which tells me Hochul may be the presumptive leader at the moment, but it’s fragile. She is just one well-publicized gun violence incident caused by the inactions of a handcuffed judge away from losing that lead. Because the public is afraid of gun violence and increase in major crimes, and sees their streets as unsafe. This intense worry has not changed, for all the tepid incremental changes that were made to the state’s controversial bail reform law during the recently concluded legislative session. Hochul is on the hook for what might happen because she didn’t fight for more, because when she does, she gets it.
As in a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
Instead, the governor opted for a splashy, hugely publicized and promoted set of enhanced gun safety measures primarily aimed at fighting mass murders, a sort of Safe Act II. She got major kudos from the media. But the truth is the speed with which these were enacted overcame due diligence and the better product that would have come from more reflection and study. Speed was a political opportunity seized.
As a consequence we have laws that will raise the age to 21 for purchase of a semiautomatic, which federal courts have already ruled unconstitutional; banned bullet-proof vests that left out the steel plate armor type the Buffalo shooter was wearing — which was the entire point of the provision — and a law that requires microstamping new guns so as to trace ownership via spent ammo. Only the technology is not established. California has had the same law for 15 years and is still waiting for it to happen.
Plus, circumventing the proposed technology is deemed easy. And, at the end of the day, microstamping at best is only a small tool for a big problem.
What we should have done first is sit down with stakeholders and experts in all applicable fields and done a forensic exercise on why it is that with some of the toughest gun laws in the country, including a robust red flag law, New York failed to prevent the hideous Buffalo shooting last month. Much of that now is coming out in dribs and drabs and there is a lot of optimism that steps like better surveillance of the internet and more diligent reporting and culling of suspected behavior can have future benefits.
But three warnings to the general public are in order about these new laws combined with more proactive enforcement and a great increase in mandated reporters as is now required of our refurbished red flag law.
One, both the First and Second amendments of the U.S. Constitution inevitably will be strained. We will rely on snitching by friends and family and judgments by caregivers and others to get word to law enforcement about possible suspect behavior. Privacy will the invaded, communications examined. There will be false and erroneous accusations that will put gun-owning families through anxieties and worse. That is within the nature of an imperfect process that attempts to prevent a crime from happening, no matter how well intended, which means ruffling a lot of feathers for the general public good. A hard sell, perhaps, but we need to accept it.
Two, my fellow Democrats in order to sell their gun control ideas have consistently oversold what they can deliver. According to The New York Times, experts opine if we reduce mass murders by a third, that will be considered significantly successful. Which means under the best case scenario — which we are unlikey to see — the horrors and the heartbreak will continue until we find more effective remedies and methods, and learn how to reset this nation’s moral compass, which is dangerously askew.
Three, and perhaps the most dismaying, is that we can’t expect to know what works and what doesn’t, at least not right away or how well.
Proving a negative — that something hasn’t happened because you did something right — is somewhere between elusive and impossible.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We would be morally bankrupt if we did not. The ghosts of too many children are looking at us accusingly. This is on all of us.