Your editorial ("New York shoots from the hip," Jan. 16) suggested that state government should have kept studying the gun issue before passing a law.
We strongly disagree.
How many more years can an issue be studied and how many more people need to die before the Times Union editorial board deems it appropriate to act?
Issues regarding Second Amendment protections and curbing gun violence have been long-discussed and long-debated during the last 200 years.
Entire forests have been clear-cut in order to print the hundreds of reports that government committees have written on this issue.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been working on this issue for 20 years and the state Assembly and Senate have been debating gun control since the Capitol was in Kingston.
We understand guns are a controversial issue and making a decision is difficult. However, government has an obligation to act and to help.
That's exactly what happened last week.
The real question that should be asked is: What took so long, and why did so many have to die to institute common-sense reform?
LARRY SCHWARTZ
Secretary to
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Albany