NY Governor Andrew Cuomo

ALBANY – Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed an expansion to his “Extreme Risk Protection Order” bill to give teachers the power to go to court to prevent a student’s access to guns, if they suspect the student might bring a gun to school and potentially engage in a school shooting.

Cuomo says the measure would give teachers, and school administrators, the power, if they believe a student might use guns to be a danger to themselves or others, to go to court.

A judge could then determine whether the student needs a mental health exam, and whether the student’s or their family’s guns should be taken away.

Cuomo says he believes people in the state overwhelmingly support the measure and predicts it will become an election issue in the fall.

With the legislative session ending in a couple weeks it is unlikely the measure will be approved by the GOP controlled Senate.

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A conference call with Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning, NY 23) and regional media representatives. Held Tuesday morning, October 3, 2017.

In this week’s conference call Rep. Reed fields questions related to the mass shooting incident in Las Vegas that took place Sunday Oct. 1, tax reform, and the Standard Data Act.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

John Plumb

LAKEWOOD, NY – The Democratic candidate for New York’s 23rd Congressional District is highlighting false statements regarding the 2nd Amendment that have been made against him by Republican incumbent Tom Reed (R-Corning).

Lakewood Democrat John Plumb’s campaign sent out a media release this week, citing several regional news sources that reported accusations made by Reed about Plumb’s record on 2nd Amendment rights, with the Plumb campaign saying they are factually incorrect.

Plumb’s campaign spokesperson Sam Newton said Reed is fabricating quotes about Plumb’s stance on protecting 2nd Amendment rights – in particular siding with the president Obama on gun control. Newton said that Plumb never said that, but instead said that he would rather have congress address the issue of gun violence, rather than the president.

Newton cited several articles in the media release that show how Reed has inaccurately presented Plumb’s view on the 2nd Amendment, including an Aug. 30 article from the the Hornell Evening Tribune:

After Plumb spoke, asserting his support for the Second Amendment, Reed took to the microphone and said, ‘”I don’t know where he (Plumb) stands on any of the issues, but I know where he stands on one.” Citing a Plumb interview with The Evening Tribune, the congressman said, “You said publicly that you support President Obama’s executive action on gun control. That’s not standing for the Second Amendment.”

… In a Jan. 8 article titled “Reed, Plumb Agree to Disagree,” the challenger actually said he would prefer Congress step up and address the issue of gun violence rather than the president.”I don’t like the president’s unilateral approach because Republicans and Democrats alike should work together to find solutions to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and the dangerously mentally ill — which Tom Reed opposes and our current Congress steadfastly refuses to do anything about,” [Plumb] said.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

Newton said the false claims by Reed are just the latest example of him making false statements about Plumb. Earlier in the campaign Reed’s reelection campaign was accused of making a fake website and social media pages about Plumb. Newtown said Reed has also denied voting for every foreign trade deal that came before him and has claimed he didn’t vote to shut down the Department of Homeland Security – both of which are false statements.

“First, Congressman Reed made a fake website about Commander Plumb to mislead voters. He then denied voting for every foreign trade deal that came before him and has claimed he didn’t vote to shut down the Department of Homeland Security,” Newton said. “Now he is fabricating quotes about Commander Plumb’s stance on protecting our Second Amendment rights. Congressman Reed embodies the unethical behavior that we are all fed up with in Washington. Those are not the values Commander Plumb stands for and why it’s time for a new representative here in the Southern Tier, Western New York and the Finger Lakes.”   

Plumb is challenging Reed for his seat in the 2016 general election. Over the past two decades he’s served as a submarine officer in the Navy and later as an official at the Department of Defense. Most recently he’s served as director of defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council and is also a Navy Reserve Commander. He graduated from Randolph High School in 1988.

Reed is an attorney and former mayor of Corning who was elected to Congress in 2010 and has represented Chautauqua County since January 2013, when redistricting created the new boundaries for the state’s 23^rd congressional district.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

WASHINGTON – As thousands in Orlando turned out Monday to mourn 49 people killed inside an LGBTQ nightclub, federal investigators examined possible motives for the gunman who committed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The White House and the FBI said 29-year-old Omar Mateen – an American born Muslim – appears to be a “homegrown extremist” who had touted support not just for the Islamic State, but other radical groups that are its enemies.

FBI Director James Comey said the agency sees no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, nor is there any indication that Mateen was part of any kind of network.

On Monday Chautauqua County’s representative in Congress spent 30-plus minutes in conference call with regional media, offering his reaction and thoughts on the Orlando mass shooting.

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Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning, NY 23) renewed his calls to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, saying more needs to be done to help law enforcement work toward preventing these types of attacks within our own borders.

“We are engaged in a war – a war of terror that is based upon a radical Islamic terrorist jihadist effort, where individuals are committed to an ideology that doesn’t represent the entire Muslim religion, but represents an extreme ideology, an extreme terroristic-based path of destruction of America and American way of life, that is represented by this shooter,” Reed said.

The Corning Republican also acknowledged that while Mateen was not an immigrant, he added that the threat represented by him will not be going away.

“If we continue to think that this threat is not amongst us and is also trying to get here to American soil, I think we’re going to potentially expose ourselves to greater risks going forward,” Reed said. “So securing our border has to be part of this conversation.”

Reed added that the U.S. also needs to commit more intelligence resources in locating and eliminating the ISIS threat in the Middle East so that it couldn’t influence others to act on its behalf, either in the U.S. or in other allied nations.

WRFA Specifically asked Reed if anything can be done to prevent mass shootings in general, given that so many have taken place over the years which were not connected to radical Islamic terrorism. He agrees that a large number of mass shootings were not perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, adding that they were committed by those suffering from mental illness. As a result, he said the country needs to focus on identifying and helping those with mental illness rather than focusing on creating federal gun restrictions.

“It’s not about gun control,” Reed said. “It’s about getting assistance to those that have suffered from mental illness. I view it as a mental condition. I view is as something where if someone had a medical condition that required special oversight by government officials, we need to make sure that that is part of the conversation. But we respect the due process and freedoms of those individuals as we go forward.”

While Congressman Reed said the country needs to focus on going after terrorists, his Western New York colleague in the house and former Chautauqua County Representative Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo) told a Buffalo television station that Mateen should not have been able to purchase the weapons he used to begin with, calling the semi-automatic rifle and semi-automatic handgun a “weapon of mass destruction” – adding that perhaps nobody should be able to purchase them.

Governor Andrew Cuomo also stated that congress needs to look into passing legislation similar to New York’s SAFE Act.