Information recently released from the New York State Police shows relatively few assault weapon owners have complied with the New York state SAFE Act’s deadline for registering the weapons. Even though the registration is free, and relatively simple to do, 311 registered in Chautauqua County while another 137 registered in Cattaraugus County.

Statewide, the registration numbers were also low: 23,847 people registered 44,485 assault weapons.

This information was only released to the public after a contested Freedom of Information Law request filed by Rochester-area lawyer Paloma Capanna on behalf of radio host Bill Robinson. This is unfortunate. State officials should have been upfront with the public about the ineffectiveness of this registration process because the information is useful to both advocates of the SAFE Act and its opponents. Without the free flow of vital information, the public cannot make rational evaluations of the effectiveness of laws. Even after the registration data was publicized in several newspapers, the state police still wouldn’t release the data to the Leader-Herald in Glovesville, a sister paper of The Post-Journal, without a lengthy FOIL request process, although officials did confirm the information that was published in other papers.

The usefulness of the registration data is obvious when compared to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s estimate that there could be as many as 1 million assault weapons in New York state. Using NSSF’s numbers, the SAFE Act compliance rate for assault weapons would appear to be only about 4 percent.

The registration data show the assault registration portion of the SAFE Act has clearly failed. More gun owners have decided to simply defy the law than participate in the registration process. The SAFE Act also banned the sale of new assault weapons with military-style features. Gun manufacturers appear to have gotten around the ban by making a new version of the popular AR-15 that doesn’t feature a pistol grip, or other military accoutrements.

If the registration portion of the SAFE Act can’t truly be enforced beyond this low level of compliance it should be removed from the law. If the state wants to keep track of the new version of the AR-15 being sold now, it should require registration at the point of sale.