Mayor Bemoans Gun Violence

Nicki Mazur, right, and Arlene Coulter were among the dozen at a rally along Montauk Highway in Water Mill to ban assault weapons. The East Hampton and Southampton Town Democrats were the sponsors.

Taylor K. Vecsey

Jun. 23, 2016

Christopher Walsh

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. issued pointed comments on the easy availability of assault rifles at the village board’s meeting on Friday, following a moment of silence held in memory of the 49 people killed in the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

“Until both sides of the political aisle in Washington D.C. — the Republicans and the Democrats — get together and come up with some meaningful gun legislation that deals specifically with assault-type weapons and multi-clip capability, this unfortunately is going to continue,” said the mayor, a former police officer.

When the oft-debated Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was crafted, he said, “there was talk about a militia. We’re way beyond that now, ladies and gentlemen, and I think we have a moral obligation, as citizens of the nation, to somehow be involved.”

It was not the first time the mayor had given voice to his frustration over gun violence. Almost exactly one year earlier, he had asked for another moment of silence at the start of a village board meeting to remember the nine people murdered in an African-American church in Charleston, S.C. “I don’t know when America is going to wise up,” he said at the time. Automatic weapons, he told The Star after that meeting, “don’t belong in the hands of John Q. Citizen.”

Mr. Rickenbach is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition founded by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take for the people in Washington,” he said on Friday in a tone that suggested both anger and despair. “We’re headed into an even darker abyss, in my estimation.”