NANUET — Former Rep. Mondaire Jones went after Rep. Mike Lawler Tuesday for opposing or not supporting gun restrictions. He spoke at a campaign rally to contrast their positions following last week’s deadly school shooting in Georgia.
Jones stood with gun safety activists at a Democratic office in Rockland County and criticized Lawler for voting with most Republicans in the House of Representatives last year to kill a new federal rule tightening regulations on pistol stabilizer braces, a device used by gunmen in several mass shootings. The GOP-led House of Representatives passed that rollback effort, but the Democratic-led Senate blocked it.
Jones also criticized his opponent for not supporting the return of a ban on military-style rifles, known as assault weapons, the kind used to kill two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia last week and in previous mass shootings. A long-pending bill would ban the firearms, but it has only Democratic House sponsors and cannot advance this term without some Republican support.
“People live in constant fear of being shot in their schools, in their houses of worship, in their grocery stores — which we saw happen in Buffalo a few years ago — really everywhere in American life,” Jones said at the news conference. “We have to do more to solve this problem, and the good news is we can do more to solve this problem.”
Jones, who held office in 2021 and 2022, is running against Lawler for New York’s 17th Congressional District, a Hudson Valley seat that will help determine which party controls the House next year. Lawler won his seat two years ago and represents an area that includes all of Rockland and Putnam counties and parts of Westchester and Dutchess.
Lawler claims ‘balanced, sensible approach’
Lawler’s campaign referred questions about his stance on gun control to his website.
The site touts his “balanced, common-sense approach,” saying he supports gun rights while “getting tough on illegal guns and those who commit crimes with them.” Lawler sponsored a bill that would have extended for 10 years the Undetectable Firearms Act, a 1988 ban on weapons that evade metal detectors. The law must be renewed periodically and was set to expire soon.
Lawler’s site says he supports “red flag” laws that keep guns away from people who pose a danger to themselves or others — as long as the laws “provide due process.” He also supports “banning gun purchases by anyone with an outstanding warrant and increasing penalties for the threat of mass assault.”
Jones and others speaking at Tuesday’s news conference called Lawler’s position inadequate.
“Mike Lawler’s record on gun violence and gun safety is atrocious, extreme and inconsistent with the values of voters and residents here in the Lower Hudson Valley,” Jones said. “You’d think he represented a district in Mississippi or Texas.”
Lawler has leveled similar accusations of extremism at Jones in their combative race. Last month, he held a press conference — also in Nanuet, just a few blocks from where Jones hosted his event on Tuesday — to criticize Jones for past statements and a House vote that called Lawler hostile to law enforcement, despite Jones’ pro-police rhetoric in his current race.
New York’s Assault Rifle Ban Is Being Challenged in Court
Congress banned assault weapons in 1994, but the law expired in 2004 and periodic attempts by Democrats to reinstate it have failed. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a ban in 2022 — with Jones among its voters — but the Senate failed to pass it then, narrowly rejecting it last December.
New York is one of 10 states, plus Washington, D.C., that have imposed their own restrictions on assault weapons since the federal ban expired. New York’s restrictions went into effect in 2013 as part of a gun control bill signed two months after a horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that left 20 children and six adults dead.
Police clash: Rep. Mike Lawler slams opponent Mondaire Jones for 2021 vote to let incarcerated people vote
New York’s assault weapons ban is now being challenged in federal court by Westchester County residents J. Mark Lane and James Sears. Their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains in 2022, argues that the law violates their Second Amendment rights and arbitrarily bans common semi-automatic rifles with features that would brand them as assault weapons, such as a pistol grip or a collapsible stock.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. He can be reached at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mondaire Jones holds news conference on gun laws after Georgia shooting
