New York enacts most sweeping gun control legislation since the SAFE Act of 2013

A package of gun control bills signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul yesterday aims to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close loopholes exposed by recent mass shootings, including one in Buffalo last month, according to the governor and majority leaders in the State Legislature.

The package of bills includes measures that:

• prohibit the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under 21;
• ban body armor sales outside of people in law enforcement and select professions;
• expand the list of persons authorized to apply for an extreme risk protection order;
• eliminate the grandfathering of devices lawfully possessed prior to the SAFE Act or manufactured prior to 1994;
• expand the definition of firearm;
• require the Division of Criminal Justice Services to certify whether microstamping-enabled pistols — which have precise, microscopic engravings on their internal mechanisms that can imprint a unique alpha-numeric array onto the shell casing of the cartridge fired from the gun — are technologically viable;
• require social media networks to provide a clear and concise policy regarding how they would respond to incidents of hateful conduct on their platforms;
• create a task force in the office of the State Attorney General to study and investigate the role of social media companies in promoting and facilitating violent extremism and domestic terrorism online;
• establish “making a threat of mass harm” as a class B misdemeanor and “aggravated making a threat of mass harm,” as a class A misdemeanor.

The Assembly also passed a resolution calling on Congress to reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. The ban prohibited manufacture of certain semiautomatic firearms and large capacity magazines for use by civilians. It expired in 2004.

“We cannot be satisfied by New York’s already tough gun laws,” Hochul said upon passage of the bills last week. “Shooting after shooting makes it clear that they must be even stronger to keep New Yorkers safe. This comprehensive package will close loopholes, give law enforcement the tools they need to prevent easy access to guns, and stop the sale of dangerous weapons to 18-year-olds,” she said.

Most of the bills passed largely along party lines, with most Republican legislators voting against the adoption of most of the bills and the resolution.

Assembly Member Jodi Giglio (R-Baiting Hollow) voted against six of the nine bills as well as the resolution. State Senator Anthony Palumbo voted against five of the nine bills. Assembly Member Fred Thiele (I-Sag Harbor) voted yes on all the bills and the resolution.

Giglio and Palumbo voted in support of expanding the list of people who can apply for an extreme risk protection order. They also supported a bill to create a task force in the AG’s office to study the role of social media companies in promoting violent extremism, and a bill to establish “making a threat of mass harm.”

Palumbo voted in support of the bill to require social media networks in New York to a provide a hateful conduct policy and to have an accessible means of reporting hateful conduct. He also supported the bill making it illegal to purchase and sell body vests to anyone who is not engaged in an eligible profession.

The bill to raise the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic weapon in New York “does absolutely nothing to protect us,” Palumbo said in an interview today. “It only regulates the purchase, not the possession. The Buffalo shooter bought his gun in Pennsylvania,” he said. “This bill doesn’t prevent that. It’s just such a pander. It does absolutely nothing to make us safer.”

Palumbo said less than 10% of crimes are committed with legal guns “So it has to do with enforcement,” he said. “They’re not willing to do increased penalties for gun crimes,” Palumbo said of Democrats, who instead opt for further regulating lawful gun owners, he said.

“The answer, my friends, is to punish people who unlawfully use guns, not make more lawful guns more difficult to get,” Palumbo said during debate on the floor of the Senate Friday. “Soft targets are targets for these maniacs because they’re soft. They know nobody’s armed. They don’t shoot up police stations,” he said.

He opposed the bill eliminating the grandfathering provisions of the SAFE Act which he said also penalizes lawful gun owners. The bill to expand the definition of a firearm is very poorly written, Palumbo said, and is so vague it will be probably be found unconstitutional. The new definition makes it illegal for a boater to possess a flare gun without a pistol license, he said.

Palumbo said he opposed the micro stamping bill because “the technology doesn’t exist…and it takes effect in five years. So it’s kind of a nothing bill.”

Giglio could not be reached for comment by press time.