The work of policymakers is a very serious business, with a moral obligation to weigh all the consequences involved in creating or altering laws. Gov. Andrew Cuomo should have taken this into account when he forced his so-called SAFE Act on the people of New York state.

The costs of his illegal gun-grab are bad enough, but the most egregious effects of this ill-conceived measure center around our constitutional freedoms and our dignity.

It is unconscionable that so many of our friends and neighbors have been laid off at Remington Arms, [a gun manufacturer that recently announced 105 layoffs at its plant in Ilion in Herkimer County as it expands in Alabama.] It is clear that Cuomo’s agenda has cost our area greatly. I warned my legislative colleagues about the issue when the SAFE Act was being debated, but the governor and the Assembly majority failed to listen.

This was not a hypothetical conversation. I was extolling the real, dire consequences of this flawed legislation.

Law-abiding upstate New Yorkers are paying dearly for a measure that isn’t even achieving its objective of reducing gun violence. The truth of the matter is that a motivated criminal will always find a way to obtain illegal weapons.

It is my hope that legislators wake up and see that what we do in Albany affects the lives of real people, the ones we are supposed to represent and protect. I am still fighting this law with bill proposals that would repeal Cuomo’s misguided gun-control law.

The consequences of the governor’s SAFE Act have been devastating. Good jobs have been lost and devoted upstate job creators have suffered. My colleagues and I in the Assembly minority conference are working to fully restore Second Amendment rights in our state, and I hope we will be able to recover from Cuomo’s gun-grab debacle.

Marc W. Butler (R,C,I–Newport) is a New York State Assemblyman for the 118th District, which encompasses parts of Oneida, Herkimer, and St. Lawrence counties, as well as all of Hamilton and Fulton counties. Contact him at butlerm@assembly.state.ny.us