New Yorkers under age 21 will be prohibited from buying semiautomatic rifles under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, making the state one of the first to enact a major gun control initiative following a wave of deadly mass shootings.
Hochul, a Democrat, signed 10 gun-related bills, including one that will require microstamping in new firearms, which could help law enforcement solve gun-related crimes.
Another revised the state’s “red flag” law, which allows courts to temporarily take away guns from people who might be a threat to themselves or others.
“In New York, we are taking bold, strong action. We’re tightening red flag laws to keep guns away from dangerous people,” Hochul said at a press conference in the Bronx.
Among the bills signed was also one that will restrict sales on body vests and armor to civilians.
New York’s Legislature passed the bills last week, pushing the changes through after a pair of mass shootings involving 18-year-old gunmen using semiautomatic rifles. Ten Black people died in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket May 14. A Texas school shooting took the lives of 19 children and two teachers 10 days later.
The governor said New York will continue to invest in prevention of gun-related crimes by partnering with local communities and continuing to strengthen laws by putting pressure on Congress.
“Today is the start, and it’s not the end,” said Hochul. “Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will. We will do that in the name of the lives that have been lost, for the parents who will no longer see their children stepping off the school bus.”
(AP)
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2 Responses
I can’t wait to read how this law is found unconstitutional, and how New York State wasted millions of dollars to pay for lawyers to defend the obviously unconstitutional law.
And the war on civil liberties continues. But soon the supreme court will finally remind New York that the Bill of Rights applies here too, and all these purported laws will fall.
18-year-olds are adults, so it is unlawful for a state to deprive them of a constitutional right without due process. That applies both to long guns (this new state law) and to handguns (federal law).
Microstamping simply doesn’t work, and is therefore a useless burden on a constitutional right. It doesn’t fulfill any compelling government interest, or even a non-compelling one.
The article doesn’t say what changes were made to the red flag laws, but such laws in general are dangerous intrusions on liberty, often work to deny people due process, and their most likely result is getting cops killed while trying to confiscate weapons from a person who has not even been given notice that he’s not supposed to have them, and therefore no reason to suppose the people raiding his house are cops! If someone is really dangerous enough not to have guns then he’s surely dangerous enough to need locking up; if he isn’t then he’s probably also not dangerous enough to justify taking his guns away. And either way he deserves due process.
Body vests and armor are the means of self-defense, which is a fundamental civil right.