A legendary thought experiment from Austrian scientist Erwin Schrödinger showed that — if the laws of quantum physics are true — a cat could theoretically be both dead and alive at the very same time.
Gov. Cuomo has now brought the same paradoxical logic to the enforcement of his signature gun control law.
A mind-bender of a deal between his office and state Senate Republicans allegedly has the effect of both suspending a key part of that 2013 statute while simultaneously keeping it fully in force.
Schrödinger’s cat, meet Cuomo’s SAFE Act.
The dramatic policy change and/or nothingburger came to light late Friday afternoon — the traditional witching hour for awkward news — when upstate Republican senators declared a partial victory in their battle to roll back Cuomo’s gun law.
According to them — and the seemingly plain language of the agreement — the law’s provision requiring background checks to purchase ammunition had been put on indefinite hold.
No state money could be spent toward that goal, declared a memorandum of understanding dated that same day, “until such time as a plan for the cost of such has been approved by the undersigned.”
Signing the document, along with top Cuomo aide Jim Malatras, was Senate GOP leader John Flanagan of Long Island — who appeared to have won a de facto veto against further enforcement efforts.
“This is a clear victory for Second Amendment rights in New York,” trumpeted Oneonta Sen. James Seward.
Almost immediately, though, Cuomo aides pushed back with the claim that hardly anything had changed.
The ammo background checks were already stalled, they argued, thanks to the technical difficulty of getting the necessary database up and running.
According to a statement from the governor’s counsel, Alphonso David, the legalese in the memo was merely Cuomo’s way of assuring nervous senators he would not rush to roll out a dysfunctional system.
“The administration continues to work to enact the database,” David insisted — without explaining how that would be possible without Flanagan’s OK to spend money.
His clarification clarified little and satisfied no one.
Gun control advocates were dismayed to see Cuomo seemingly backtracking on his own landmark law. Gun rights activists blasted the deal as empty symbolism. And Democrats in the Legislature threatened to sue — contending, reasonably, that the governor has no business signing away his ability to enforce a duly enacted statute.
Tellingly, Cuomo himself has said nothing about the deal. Nor has Flanagan, who represents a Long Island district where gun control is generally popular.
Behind the scenes, the governor’s aides downplayed the impact of the agreement — even though no one could remember seeing anything like it, and even though it bore Malatras’ signature as director of state operations.
The muddle stands in head-scratching contrast to Cuomo’s strong leadership in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, when he led the charge against America’s plague of gun violence.
He pushed the SAFE Act through just one month after that horrific massacre — heralding it as among the toughest gun laws in the country.
Eager to seize the political moment — and stem a run on gun shops — Cuomo pressured the Legislature into passing the bill mere hours after he introduced it, with virtually no debate or public scrutiny.
His haste came with the price of predictable blunders that undercut his cause.
Most embarrassingly, the courts threw out the much-heralded seven-round magazine limit because, it turns out, no magazines smaller than 10 rounds were available on the market.
Cuomo had also counted on using an FBI database to run ammunition background checks — only to learn too late that such piggybacking runs afoul of federal rules.
The state therefore faced the task of creating, from scratch, a computer system that could instantaneously check the criminal and mental health histories of would-be ammunition buyers — a daunting and expensive challenge that would likely make Cuomo even less popular with upstate Republicans.
Friday’s maddeningly ambiguous memo is clearly Cuomo’s way of wriggling out of a bind of his own making.
Is he undermining public safety or throwing a meaningless sop to gun zealots? Is he horse-trading with Republicans (in exchange for who knows what) or is he playing them for fools?
As Schrödinger himself might have concluded: All of the above and none of the above at the same time.
