…is underway. You can watch it below. Assemblyman Joe Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Codes Committee, is defending the SAFE Act. Assemblyman Tony Jordan, the newly minted floor leader for the Republican conference, is leading the charge against the legislation.

The fact that there’s a debate taking place at all is worth noting, since there wasn’t one in the Senate last night. Only two Republicans – Sens. Greg Ball and Kathy Marchione – bothered to explain their respective votes on the floor. Otherwise, the GOP members simply let their votes speak for themselves.

So far, we’ve learned during this debate that the assault weapons ban portion of the act doesn’t take effect for 90 days, in order to give the State Police time to set up the required registry. The limit on magazines from 10 rounds to seven does take effect immediately.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Lentol is wrong, and the assault weapons ban does, in fact, take effect immediately, too.

UPDATE2: Also of interest: Lentol says the governor is readying a chapter amendment to the not-yet-fully-passed SAFE Act to correct what the assemblyman said were errors caused by “mistaken drafting.”

NOTE: I got the livestream from Politics on the Hudson, because I couldn’t figure out how to embed the Assembly version. Many thanks to the Gannett folks.

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