Carl Paladino

With yet another rally at the Capitol — the third in the last several weeks — to oppose the month-old gun control law, Republican former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is again urging his supporters to come to Albany and demonstrate against the law.

Paladino was here last week for a rally that, if anything, highlighted the struggles within the conservative voter base over the measure, even if polls show most New Yorkers are in favor of updating the state’s assault weapons ban.

Next week rally will be held on Feb. 28 and this time it’s sponsored by the New York Rifle and Pistol Association.

Now Paladino is calling attention to another measure that contributes to the so-called “slipper slope” argument about gun control — namely the theory that one gun control law opens the door to other, even more Draconian measures.

The Buffalo businessman in a blast email sent a few days ago called attention to a little-noticed measure carried by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz that would require up to $1 million in limited liability insurance for anyone who owns a firearm.

From the bill memo:

“This legislation establishes and requires gun-owners to obtain and maintain liability insurance policy prior to such ownership. By having this insurance policy in place, innocent victims of gun-related accidents and violence will be compensated for the medical care for their injuries.”

That Ortiz’s bill stands little chance of passing seems like a given after the passage of the sweeping law last month and the expending of political capital to do so. 

For now, he is listed as the only sponsor in the Assembly and there is no companion bill in the state Senate.

Republican former gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino is back in Albany today for a large anti-gun control rally — an event that is not only sharply criticizing Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s work to pass the law, but Senate Republicans.

Adding a different dimension to the rally, some GOP lawmakers upset with the law’s passage are appearing at the rally with Paladino today.

It doesn’t help matters that Paladino is calling on Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos to resign.

“Skelos should get out of town,” Paladino told reporters at the Capitol before the rally started. “He should go and find himself a job at a car wash. He’s a bum and he’s a cowardly bum.”

Paladino decried the Senate Republican leadership — including Sens. Tom Libous and George Maziarz who both voted against the law — for being Republicans in name only.

“The people of the state of New York voted Republicans out of office for a reason. They can’t identify with the Republican Party. The Republican Party is in total disarray,” Paladino said, adding, “You got a bunch of RINOS running around pretending that they’re Republicans and the people — the rank and file — came out and voted in primary.”

Paladino, fueled in part by the tea party in 2010, upset preferred nominee former Rep. Rick Lazio in a September primary and lost in a landslide to Cuomo that November. Last year he threatened to fund primary efforts against several Senate Republicans, but those efforts largely failed.

But the Buffalo businessman remains deeply upset with the state’s Republican Party leadership and the Senate GOP.

“You got a whole bunch of people sitting in the state Senate calling themselves Republicans, but that’s in name only because they’re playing their games,” Paladino said. “Why do they do that? To perpetuate themselves in office, to line their pockets, to have the power of the seat and that’s what it’s about.”

Paladino did have kind words for his running mate, Chautauqua County Executive Greg Edwards, who in a Capital Tonight interview did not rule out running for governor in 2014. Edwards was actually the original running mate of Lazio, but in a quirk won his primary against Paladino’s preferred bottom half of the ticket, Tom Ognibene.

“I would highly support that,” Paladino said.

In the middle of the question and answer session, Sen. Greg Ball walked by and shouted, “Give ‘em hell Carl!”

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino is returning to Albany.

Paladino, along with several Senate Republican lawmakers, will take part in a large anti-gun control rally to be held on Tuesday at the state Capitol here in Albany.

Plans for the rally were announced this morning by Unite New York, a firearm advocacy group. The event comes on the heels of a sweeping gun control law that passed last month in Albany that updates the state’s assault weapons ban and limits the number of rounds in a high-capacity magazine.

Though several Republican lawmakers in the Senate backed the law, GOP leader Dean Skelos said on Tuesday that in hindsight the conference may “have acted in haste.” He told reporters yesterday that chapter amendments to the law will be rolled out next week.

Complicating matters has been conference members within the Senate Republicans who are strident opponents of the law, with three of them — Sens. Kathy Marchione Greg Ball and Lee Zeldin — taking part in the rally next week.

Paladino last year pledged to support primaries against incumbent Senate Republicans, though none of his direct efforts were successful.

Despite the law passing nearly a month ago, emotions — and tempers — over the measure remain hot. Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin on Tuesday apologized after he said Hitler and Mussolini would have been proud of Cuomo’s push on gun control.

Buffalo business and 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino blasted the gun control law approved last week as a “cosmetic bill” done only to burnish Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s national standing.

The comments came in a YouTube video from a anti-gun control rally over the weekend that Paladino emailed links to this evening.

In all, it was very much vintage Paladino of 2010, when the tea party movement was reaching its zenith across the country and he road a conservative wave of dissatisfaction with Albany to defeat former Rep. Rick Lazio in a Republican primary.

Paladino also slammed Albany lawmakers who voted for the bill, including Buffalo Sens. Mark Grisanti, a Republican, and Tim Kennedy, a Democrat.

Paladino had pledged last year to fund primary campaigns against Republican senators, but in the end Kevin Stocker failed to take the GOP line from Grisanti.

But he singled out Cuomo’s “vanity” and insistence on getting the bill through the Legislature quickly.

“He’s all about himself,” Paladino said of Cuomo. ”We don’t care if the polls say this or that. You can’t take away the rights.”

That was followed by a chant of “impeach Cuomo” from the crowd.

Later in the video, Paladino criticizes Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s support for a state version of the Dream Act, and Cuomo’s legislation that would expand abortion and reproductive rights.