"under legal adult supervision at shooting ranges." How does that mean you can take them handgun hunting?
And from the NYSDEC Pages:
Handgun*- any centerfire pistol or revolver. Barrel length maximum is 16 inches
(NOTE: Possession of handguns in New York State requires a NYS Pistol Permit. New York does not recognize permits issued by other states.)
Youth pistol bill suddenly passes state Legislature
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 2:55 PM CDT
By Don Lehman Contributing Writer
Albany - Teens as young as 14 can legally shoot pistols in a controlled setting under a law enacted in New York earlier this summer.
The new statute was hailed as the first new pro-gun law in New York in a decade.
Signed by Gov. George Pataki, it will allow New York youth to learn to use handguns under legal adult supervision at shooting ranges.
The law previously had allowed only those 18 and older to use handguns, and critics argued it hampered children in New York who wanted to take part in Olympic shooting sports.
“This is a law we’ve been trying to get passed for as long as I can remember,” said Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, which had pushed heavily for the law change.
The National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation had also supported the change.
The law allows teens to learn to use handguns at a range or place of business established for “conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in small arms or at a target pistol shooting competition.” That’s legal jargon for fish and game clubs and other sportsmen’s organizations that operate shooting ranges.
In addition to allowing teens to use handguns at an earlier age to train for shooting sports, it will also expose more youths to sporting activities like hunting, King said.
“Its benefits are twofold,” he said.
King said bills that would have changed the age to shoot a pistol or revolver had failed in the Legislature several times in recent years, always failing to get through the Democrat-controlled Assembly.
This time around, its wording was changed so that it exempted the teens from the Penal Law instead of changing the law itself.
King said he did not know why the bill got through the Assembly this year. In fact, a year after it had been shot down in the Assembly, only 12 Assembly members voted against it.
“It’s just speculation on my part, but I think that it’s partly because it’s an election year and I think the Assembly sees we (the NYSRPA) have become much more organized,” he said.
It was sponsored in the Assembly by western New York Democrat Francine DelMonte and in the Senate by western New York Republican Dale Volker.
King said Assemblyman James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, the Assembly’s minority leader, was instrumental in getting the bill passed. Tedisco has received the NYSRPA’s Legislator of the Year award for 2006.
The law took effect immediately upon Pataki’s signing it on July 31.
