By Brian Zanzonico
Andrew Chernoff, the owner of Coliseum Gun Traders in Uniondale, presented Dick Cheney with a Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver at the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation's 10th annual Semper Fidelis Gala at the Plaza in Manhattan on April 1.
For a decade, the nonprofit organization has provided financial assistance to the children of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement personnel. Each year, at the Gala, guests of honor, most of whom have military backgrounds, are given firearms as tokens of appreciation.
"It's good to give back and be able to help," said Chernoff, who donated the handgun. "It's my way of donating to charity, to help out and give back to the people who protect us."
The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation was co-founded in 1995 by James Kallstrom, former chief of the New York FBI office, who led two large-scale investigations of Al Qaeda; Richard Torykian, a former Marine and friend of Chernoff's; and three other former Marines.
"We said if we're going to be a real organization, there can be no overhead," Torykian said. "We don't take a penny. We even eat the postage [for newsletters]."
But just a few months into its infancy, disaster struck. In the spring of 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. "So many [of the dead] were federal law enforcement agents that we almost went broke," Torykian said.
When he told his friend, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, about the group's financial woes, Limbaugh adopted the Marines Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation as his charity. Soon a number of benefactors stepped forward, and the foundation was back on its feet.
In the decade since its inception, the foundation has distributed $23 million earmarked for health care and education to the children of armed forces members killed in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and other American disasters and conflicts. Even the children of British and Polish military personnel killed in Iraq have been given support.
Chernoff got involved several years ago, when he was asked by Torykian to make a donation of firearms to the charity. Chernoff said he could get a few to auction off, but Torykian said he'd rather present them as gifts to the people they honor every year. Torykian said that Chernoff has also been a financial contributor.
Chernoff said that he and Cheney spoke only briefly the night of the event. "We discussed guns," said Chernoff, who also presented a Kimber Warrior pistol to General William Nyland, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps. "He thanked me for the beautiful gun and [said] that it was nice to be a part of such a good cause."
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