Response to Bill effecting Black Powder Weapons
In response to the NY bill that would cripple museums and reenactors, I have written the following letter:
Dear Mr. Gianaris,
Although I am not a resident of your state, I am a reenactor who often comes over to New York to participate and spend money at NY-sponsored historic reenactment events. I am part of an armed gunboat unit that does French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, and War of 1812 events. There are approximately 4 people in my crew - not a lot, to be sure, but we're part of a larger fleet of nearly two dozen vessels from Canada and Northern New England that regularly spends our summers doing education at tourism-promoting events for New York.
The New York State Assembly Bill A09543, "An act to amend the penal law and the general business law, in relation to antique firearms," is a direct threat to museums and reenactors in New York. I can speak with confidence when I say that if reenactors were required to register our non-modern historic replica firearms, most of us will simply find other places to donate our time. We as reenactors are fortunate - we can simply vote with our feet and boycott New York events. The dozens of small museums with military collections that happen to be housed in New York are far less able to survive such legislation.
I am a museum professional, with a Master's degree in the subject from the University of New Hampshire and a professional career that includes time at institutions such as Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA) and Strawbery Banke (Portsmouth, NH). Museums of that size are fortunate in that they have fairly stable finances and could afford sudden large fees. I have also worked at much smaller institutions, however, and their financial picture is much different. The vast majority of museums, including in New York, operate on shoestring budgets. With all the federal cutbacks in humanities funding, many museums are currently lucky to be able to house their collections in the protective environments artifacts require. Slapping additional registration fees on such institutions for each gun they happen to own as an artifact in their collection will simply mean these collections are broken up and sold out of state, or that other areas of the collections will suffer due to lack of funds necessary to keep the guns - even those that no museum professional could ever fire in good conscience due to the damage the artifacts would suffer. If you still want to pass this legislation as-is, perhaps additional funding for museums to help them cover these costs would be in order, though this will do nothing for the private reenactors who will no longer participate in NY events.
The only threat these black-powder weapons pose is the damage their loss would cause to the tourism revenue of places like Fort William Henry, Fort La Presentation, Crown Point, and Fort Ticonderoga, as well as in the shameful loss of New York's historic heritage caused by museums forced to disband their collections in the face of these unnecessary fees and requirements.
New York State Assembly Bill A09543 is not going to contribute significantly to the safety of New York State. Its strongest effect will be all the opportunities for sharing New York's history that will have been irrevocably lost. Please keep this in mind and reconsider this bill.
Yours truly,
Hakerh (Full name in letter, obviously)
Montgomery Center, VT
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I sent this to the bill's sponsor (gianarm@assembly.state.ny.us), as well as all the cosponsors (Pheffea@assembly.state.ny.us, diazr@assembly.state.ny.us, paulina@assembly.state.ny.us, mayersn@assembly.state.ny.us, weisenh@assembly.state.ny.us, ortizf@assembly.state.ny.us,
YoungE@assembly.state.ny.us, espaila@assembly.state.ny.us, peraltj@assembly.state.ny.us, eddingp@assembly.state.ny.us, bingj@assembly.state.ny.us, clarkb@assembly.state.ny.us, gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us, markeym@assembly.state.ny.us, millmaj@assembly.state.ny.us) Feel free to email them yourselves, too. :)
Heh, I think this is only the first or second letter to a politician I have written outside of class assignments or "Dear President: Are you fucking high? PS, I didn't vote for you and I hate you" letters. Okay, just kidding on the second one, but I've sure thought about it before.
Dear Mr. Gianaris,
Although I am not a resident of your state, I am a reenactor who often comes over to New York to participate and spend money at NY-sponsored historic reenactment events. I am part of an armed gunboat unit that does French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, and War of 1812 events. There are approximately 4 people in my crew - not a lot, to be sure, but we're part of a larger fleet of nearly two dozen vessels from Canada and Northern New England that regularly spends our summers doing education at tourism-promoting events for New York.
The New York State Assembly Bill A09543, "An act to amend the penal law and the general business law, in relation to antique firearms," is a direct threat to museums and reenactors in New York. I can speak with confidence when I say that if reenactors were required to register our non-modern historic replica firearms, most of us will simply find other places to donate our time. We as reenactors are fortunate - we can simply vote with our feet and boycott New York events. The dozens of small museums with military collections that happen to be housed in New York are far less able to survive such legislation.
I am a museum professional, with a Master's degree in the subject from the University of New Hampshire and a professional career that includes time at institutions such as Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA) and Strawbery Banke (Portsmouth, NH). Museums of that size are fortunate in that they have fairly stable finances and could afford sudden large fees. I have also worked at much smaller institutions, however, and their financial picture is much different. The vast majority of museums, including in New York, operate on shoestring budgets. With all the federal cutbacks in humanities funding, many museums are currently lucky to be able to house their collections in the protective environments artifacts require. Slapping additional registration fees on such institutions for each gun they happen to own as an artifact in their collection will simply mean these collections are broken up and sold out of state, or that other areas of the collections will suffer due to lack of funds necessary to keep the guns - even those that no museum professional could ever fire in good conscience due to the damage the artifacts would suffer. If you still want to pass this legislation as-is, perhaps additional funding for museums to help them cover these costs would be in order, though this will do nothing for the private reenactors who will no longer participate in NY events.
The only threat these black-powder weapons pose is the damage their loss would cause to the tourism revenue of places like Fort William Henry, Fort La Presentation, Crown Point, and Fort Ticonderoga, as well as in the shameful loss of New York's historic heritage caused by museums forced to disband their collections in the face of these unnecessary fees and requirements.
New York State Assembly Bill A09543 is not going to contribute significantly to the safety of New York State. Its strongest effect will be all the opportunities for sharing New York's history that will have been irrevocably lost. Please keep this in mind and reconsider this bill.
Yours truly,
Hakerh (Full name in letter, obviously)
Montgomery Center, VT
---------------------------
I sent this to the bill's sponsor (gianarm@assembly.state.ny.us), as well as all the cosponsors (Pheffea@assembly.state.ny.us, diazr@assembly.state.ny.us, paulina@assembly.state.ny.us, mayersn@assembly.state.ny.us, weisenh@assembly.state.ny.us, ortizf@assembly.state.ny.us,
YoungE@assembly.state.ny.us, espaila@assembly.state.ny.us, peraltj@assembly.state.ny.us, eddingp@assembly.state.ny.us, bingj@assembly.state.ny.us, clarkb@assembly.state.ny.us, gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us, markeym@assembly.state.ny.us, millmaj@assembly.state.ny.us) Feel free to email them yourselves, too. :)
Heh, I think this is only the first or second letter to a politician I have written outside of class assignments or "Dear President: Are you fucking high? PS, I didn't vote for you and I hate you" letters. Okay, just kidding on the second one, but I've sure thought about it before.