Back in January, when Chuck and I attended the gun show in Saratoga Springs, we asked Albany County District Attorney David Soares why he was in attendance at the anti-gun rally outside. He told me that they see assault weapons and large capacity magazines used "quite often" in crimes in Albany County.  

However, a Freedom of Information Request proved that to be untrue.  

Here's more on that:

http://www.wgy.com/pages/chuckandkelly.html?article=10702815

So I decided to take it one step further. I wanted to know how many crimes of any kind were committed with a legally owned firearm of any kind.  I specifically wanted to know how many of these crimes would have been prevented by NY's new SAFE Act.

I filed another Freedom of Information request. They weren't quite as anxious to release the information as quickly this time around, and they missed the first deadline.  I will give them the benefit of the doubt, however, because I'm sure if there WERE crimes committed using legally owned firearms of any kind, they would be very quick to tell me that.

I just received the answer.  Rather, I received the lack of an answer. Soares says "A diligent search of our records finds nothing responsive to the request."

So what crimes are we preventing with this NY SAFE Act?  If all of the guns that were used in Albany County last year were already illegally owned, what changes?  The only thing that changes is those who have owned guns and used them legally and responsibly are now considered criminals if they keep them, and are less able to protect themselves and their families if they don't.

I think we already knew that. And I'm pretty sure DA David Soares and Gov. Andrew Cuomo knew that, too.