WEST SENECA, N.Y. — For the second time in just a matter of days, Western New York gun-rights advocates voiced their concerns when it comes to universal background checks and the Red Flag Law.
"I think the history shows us there's a big problem here with the way these things are written," Steve Felano of 2AWNY said.
Felano told 2 On Your Side he has several issues with the Red Flag Law, and he believes state leaders need to go back to the drawing board.
"Entrusting someone's civil rights to one individual and their subjective judgment is a big problem, and it's unconstitutional," he said.
2AWNY members chose to demonstrate outside the West Seneca Public Library on Thursday because the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America was holding a meeting inside.
"Really what I think (universal background checks) for them is all about and what red flag laws are all about is straight-up confiscation," Felano said.
But the leader of the local Moms Demand Action group, Meghan Connors, said that's not the case.
"We support the second amendment," she said. "We support gun owners. We have many gun owners in our organization, actually.
"We just feel that with gun ownership, there also comes responsibilities and that we can do a lot better in this country than over 30,000 deaths per year by gunfire."
The local chapter has previously advocated for the passage of laws relating to background checks along with a federal Red Flag Law.
"There's an epidemic of gun violence in America right now. It's frankly a public heath crisis," Connors said.
After the recent attacks in El Paso and Dayton, President Donald Trump also expressed support for more background checks and some form of a Red Flag Law.
But those opposed doubt whether or not these restrictions would be effective.
"Criminals don't obey the law. Insanely angry people don't obey the law. Evil people don't obey the law. So it's not gonna have and it hasn't had any effect on that," said Louis Reid, who attended the gun-rights rally.