Gov. Hochul, lawmakers agree on new gun, anti-violence measures

ALBANY — A week after the latest mass shooting, New York lawmakers reached a deal Tuesday on a series of gun and anti-violence laws.

The key measures include requiring microstamping of pistols to enable tracking of fired cartridges, prohibiting the sale and purchase of armored vests for anyone not in law enforcement or other approved professions, and raising the purchase age for a semi-automatic rifle to 21 from 18.

It also will make semi-automatic rifles subject to the same regulatory structure in the state as pistols — meaning a license would be required. Another measure would eliminate the grandfathering of large-capacity ammunition magazines that were legally possessed before New York approved the “Safe Act” in 2013.

The bills will be approved by the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly this week, before the houses adjourn the 2022 legislative session. It will be part of a busy final week that will also see Democrats approve a series of abortion rights and election-law bills.

But one proposal that won’t gain approval is one that would have shifted town and county elections to even-numbered years, setting them on the same schedule as presidential and gubernatorial election years. Democrats said they need more consultation with local governments and maybe even public hearings before moving forward.

The agreement on guns comes one week after a mass shooting in a Texas elementary school and 17 days after an avowed white supremacist killed 10 in a Buffalo supermarket. Each shooting was carried out with a legally purchased AR-15.

"Within the last month, two horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and in Texas have rattled this nation to our core and shed a new light on the urgent need for action to prevent future tragedies," said Gov. Kathy Hochul in announcing the agreement with legislative leaders.

“New Yorkers deserve to feel safe in schools, in grocery stores, in movie theaters, in shopping malls, and on our streets — and we must do everything in our power to protect them,” Hochul added.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said the call, by some Republicans, for more armed guards in schools isn’t the answer.

“They don’t want to talk about the availability of guns. They don’t want to talk about the high increase of gun sales in the last years. They always want to blame something else,” Heastie (D-Bronx) told Newsday in an interview.

The speaker said he personally doesn’t believe “anyone should have these weapons of war” but by requiring licensing and background checks and raising the purchasing age for such weapons, “we’re trying to avert the next catastrophe.”

Republican state chairman Nick Langworthy, in a statement, blamed issues other than guns and blasted the Democrats’ package of bills.

“This package of bills does nothing to actually address the underlying mental health crisis at the center of the problem nor does it invest in securing our schools,” Langworthy said.

“This isn’t an appropriate response that will result in any meaningful change,” said Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Pulaski).

Just last month, a California court ruled unconstitutional a state law similar to the New York proposal: raising the purchase age for semi-automatic weapons to 21 from 18.

The microstamping bill would require pistols sold in New York to be “microstamping enabled,” which could then imprint markings on fired cartridges, enabling investigators to link a bullet to a particular gun.

The magazine capacity bill focuses on an element of a gun safety law enacted in 2013 — just after the mass shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut, school. That law — called the “Safe Act” — limited magazine capacities to 10 rounds but kept legal any larger magazines purchased prior to the law. The new bill would strike the “grandfather” clause of the 2013 law, which allowed individuals to continue to possess large magazines.

The body vest bill is tied to the Buffalo shooting in which the gunman donned a helmet and body armor before walking into a supermarket in a Black neighborhood and killing 10. The gunman had written in detail online about his shooting plans prior to the attack.

Another bill was inspired by an incident on Long Island, a legislator said: It would create the crime of making a threat of mass harm.

Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) said the legislation was spurred by an incident in which, according to court documents, a custodian at an East Norwich school threatened to “Columbine” the school, referring to the infamous 1999 shooting massacre in Colorado.

The employee was indicted on a charge of making a terrorist threat, but the courts dismissed the indictment because prosecutors failed to present legally sufficient evidence that a threat was imminent.

Under the new bill, a person could be charged with threatening mass harm if he or she threatens to inflict serious harm or death and prosecutors wouldn’t have to prove the person had the intent or capability to follow through.

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy