Politics & Government

Close Friend of Losquadro: Gun Crowd 'Idiots and Lunatics'

Local lashes out as group that tried to persuade voters to abandon the Republican at the polls as punishment for his vote in favor of the state's strict new gun law.

A close friend to Brookhaven Highway Supervisor-elect Dan Losquadro posted a scathing blog on Wednesday calling the pro-gun rights crowd "idiots and lunatics" for their campaign to take votes away from Losquadro over the assemblyman's vote in favor of New York's strict new gun laws.

"Yesterday, I saw an organized raid on the Facebook event I set up to remind people to vote for Dan. And I did something I very rarely do - I deleted negative comments," wrote Tom Hespos, a gun owner who said Losquadro was the best man at his wedding.

"The comments being posted were part of an organized harassment campaign. There are people very angry at Dan for voting the way he did when Governor Cuomo pushed to be the first to pass gun control legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook. Those people are determined to punish Dan for his vote, but not by putting up their own candidate for state assembly and supporting him, but by harassing his supporters in the completely unrelated highway race," he continued.

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This week, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow put the spotlight on the campaign against Losquadro, linking to a video they posted showing activists shooting Losquadro campaign signs.

"A state politician helps to pass a law you don't like, so you steal one of his campaign signs, shoot it up and post the video to YouTube? Really?​" he wrote.

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Despite the activists' campaign, Losquadro won a close election on Tuesday amidst outcry over the town's plowing performance in last month's blizzard, where town roads went unplowed for days, the acting highway supervisor called in sick with a tooth problem and the town supervisor was out of the country on a Jamaica vacation.

Read the full blog post here. (Warning, Hespos uses a few expletives.)


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