Gun Laws in NYS-New, tougher regulations: Part 2
by Len Geller –
In part one of this article, we examined three of the seven new gun control bills passed by the New York State Legislature in early 2019. In this part we will examine the four remaining bills, including a controversial Safe Storage Bill passed in March 2019.
School safety
Under previous law, firearms were prohibited in K-12 schools and on school grounds in New York state unless authorized by a school administrator. This meant that a school administrator had the authority and discretion to arm teachers or other school employees. Under the new law this will be prohibited. A school administrator will still have authority to allow school resource officers, law enforcement, or security guards to carry guns in school and on school grounds but not teachers or other school employees.
The arguments in support of this new law are compelling. Disallowing teachers and other school employees from possessing guns in school reduces the risk of accidental death or injury, eliminates the risk of a student gaining access to such guns, and reduces the level of fear and stress in the classroom. While the law would seem to be a no-brainer, there are critics who argue against it on the grounds that arming teachers and school employees could prevent or stop another horrific mass shooting. According to supporters of the new law, there are several major problems with this rebuttal. If a school policy allows school employees to be armed, most of whom will lack the training and experience of using a gun in a real-life situation, it will be ineffective and possibly disastrous, and even if the employee does have some training, he or she would stand little chance in a face-to-face confrontation with a heavily armed shooter. For those in favor of the new law, protecting the schools from gun violence should be done by trained professionals not amateurs.
Banning Bump Stocks and Gun Buyback Program
In October 2017 in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, a sole gunman using semi-automatic rifles modified with a bump stock opened fire on a huge crowd of outdoor concert- goers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Desert and Casino in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 more. A semi-automatic firearm releases one bullet per trigger pull, but when modified with a bump stock device, it will produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger. A bump stock device converts a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon or machine gun that can release many more rounds per second than a semi-automatic weapon and produce more carnage in the same amount of time. While a machine gun has more potential killing power than a semi-automatic weapon, it is notoriously less accurate; however, in certain contexts like an outdoor music concert or crowded movie theater where pinpoint accuracy doesn’t matter, a semi-automatic converted into an automatic weapon will produce more lethal results.
Under New York law, the attachment of bump stock devices is illegal, and in December 2018, the Federal government followed suit by classifying guns modified with such devices as “machine guns” and therefore illegal under federal law. While New York law had previously banned the attachment of bump stock devices to a firearm, it did not prohibit the manufacture, sale, possession, or transport of these devices. The new law closes this loophole by extending the ban to these other areas.
Another piece of gun control legislation creates a “municipal gun buyback program” administered by the state police that will allow individuals to turn in illegal guns anonymously for a monetary reward without fear of prosecution. Since gun buyback programs elsewhere have been very successful in removing large quantities of illegal guns from the streets and making communities safer, this uncontroversial piece of legislation had strong bipartisan support.
Safe Storage of Guns
Both federal law and the SAFE Act of 2013 require the safe storage of all firearms in households where any member is legally prohibited from owning and possessing a gun, but neither law requires safe storage in households with children who may gain access to such firearms. The Safe Storage Bill closes this loophole by requiring all gun owners or caretakers with children under 16 residing in the home to lock all guns in a safe storage depository or with a gun-locking device when the gun is out of their immediate possession and control. It also requires that the gun be stored or locked unloaded in a location separate from ammunition, even when children not living in the residence are on the premises. Failure to comply may lead to a charge of a first-degree class A misdemeanor that can carry a jail term of one year or probation of three years, plus a fine up to $1,000.
A majority of states (27 by my count) have Child Access Prevention (CAP) Laws, but they vary greatly in scope and application. Some states impose criminal sanctions only when a minor gains access to an improperly secured firearm, while others impose sanctions only when a minor not only gains access to an unsecured firearm in the home but also uses it to cause or threaten to cause death or serious injury. The scope of the New York bill is even wider, imposing criminal sanctions for simply allowing a minor to gain access, regardless of whether the minor actually gains access or uses the firearm against anyone. In many states criminal liability depends on whether the gun owner or caretaker intentionally and knowingly provides a firearm to minors. In New York, on the other hand, intention is irrelevant to criminal liability. What matters is the negligent storage of a firearm, regardless of intent. These conditions make the New York CAP law, along with those of Massachusetts and Minnesota, the strongest in the nation.
The policy issue of safe gun storage with children in the home raises two central questions: (1) Are children under 18 at risk in households with loaded and unlocked guns? (2) Would safe storage and child access protection measures substantially reduce the risk of death and injury to children in these households? The answer to both questions is yes. In a major study of gun storage rates in gun-owning households with children in 2015 (published by Journal of Urban Health in June 2018), researchers found that approximately one in three households with children under 18 had at least one gun, and of these, 21% stored at least one gun loaded and unlocked, 29% stored all guns unloaded and locked, and 50%, though storing no guns loaded and unlocked, had at least one gun loaded and locked or unloaded and unlocked. Extrapolating from the available data, the study concluded that approximately 4.6 million children lived in a household with at least one loaded and unlocked gun in 2015.
This research also produced some surprising results not noticed before in gun policy studies. In gun-owning households with children under 18, female gun owners were nearly twice as likely than male gun owners to store at least one gun loaded and unlocked, those who owned guns primarily for protection were nearly seven times more likely to store at least one gun loaded and unlocked than those who owned guns for non-protective reasons (like hunting, target shooting, etc.), and those who owned handguns were four times more likely to leave at least one gun loaded and unlocked than those who owned only long guns like rifles and shotguns.
The Children’s Firearm Safety Alliance (CFSA) is an organization that tracks unintentional shootings by children under the age of 18 who gain access to loaded guns in the home and shoot themselves or others. Relying on confirmed news reports, the CFSA database shows that in 2017 children unintentionally shot and killed 138 people, only five of whom were adults, and shot and injured 226 more, only 11 of whom were adults. Of the 133 children that were killed, 67 deaths were self-inflicted, and of the 215 children that were injured, 105 of the injuries were self-inflicted. The data from 2018, though not completely broken down by category, shows a slight decline in these figures (87 children killed, 177 children injured, and 11 adults shot). What the CFSA database shows is that a significant number of children who gain access to a loaded and unlocked gun in the home will unintentionally shoot themselves, a sibling, a friend, a parent, or other family member.
There is no question that CAP laws would reduce unintentional deaths and injuries to children if there was a high rate of gun-owner compliance, but do they work in real-life situations where compliance rates may be lower? In the largest meta-study of its kind, the non-partisan Rand Corporation concluded that, while more studies are needed in this area, there is strong supporting evidence that CAP laws do reduce unintentional gun injuries and deaths among children, and this reduction increases as the CAP law gets tougher.
What about intentional shootings by children with guns found in the home? Common sense leads us to expect that CAP laws will prevent many of the suicides and homicides (including school shootings) committed by children and adolescents who obtain a firearm in the home. But do they in fact? Again, while the research in this area is limited, several studies do show that CAP laws reduce firearm suicide rates among young people under 20 and may increase school safety because students are less likely to carry guns, be threatened or injured by a firearm, or miss school because of safety concerns.
Supporters of the New York CAP law also argue that it will reduce the number of firearms stolen from homes. According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) of the FBI. 238,000 firearms were stolen in 2016, many of which were used in other crimes. Between 2005 and 2016, two million guns were reported stolen in the U.S., which is probably an underestimate since some gun thefts go unreported. Since there is no reliable data on the relationship (if any) between CAP laws and home-firearm thefts, common sense tells us that there will be a reduction in the number of stolen guns, but how significant this reduction will be is impossible to say.
A common argument against CAP laws and the safe storage of guns in the home is that they leave the gun owner and other members of the household unprotected in the case of an emergency, like a burglary or home invasion. Since fast reaction time is essential, the safe storage of a firearm makes that impossible and puts both the gun owner and other residents of the household in harm’s way. Several replies can be made to this argument. For one thing, despite the beliefs of many gun owners, especially those who have guns in the home for protection, the scenario presented above bears little resemblance to reality, except perhaps in high-crime neighborhoods in urban and suburban areas. In relatively low-crime areas, whether in urban/suburban areas or upstate rural New York, the odds of a home break-in or invasion requiring immediate access to a loaded gun are almost nil. Many studies show that while a majority of gun owners who own guns for protection believe a loaded and unlocked gun makes them and their loved ones safer in the home, in fact they are less safe with a gun in the home, regardless of safe storage practices. In a 2014 meta-study of available research by the Annals of Internal Medicine, gun ownership was associated with a doubled risk for homicide and a tripled risk for suicide compared to non-gun ownership. From 1993 to 2017, these studies show that a gun in the home greatly increases the odds that someone living in the home would kill themselves or be killed with a gun by a family member, friend, or acquaintance.
Even if the self-defense scenario presented above does apply in some rare situations, the time it takes a gun-owner to unlock an electronic gun safe or lock box and slap a loaded clip or magazine into a semi-automatic handgun or rifle will not be much greater than the time it takes to access an unlocked and loaded gun. To be sure, if the gun in question is a revolver, shotgun, or non-semiautomatic rifle, it will take longer to load but not by much. After all, how many seconds does it take to load 5 or 6 bullets in the chamber of a revolver? Unless an assailant leaves you with no time to access even a free-standing loaded gun, it will take only a few extra seconds to access and load a secured firearm.
The major weakness of any CAP law, including New York’s, is not the sacrifice of home protection, as alleged by critics, but citizen compliance and enforcement. While in theory safe storage will prevent hundreds of gun deaths and injuries at the hands of children, in practice you need widespread compliance from gun owners for the law to have a significant effect. It would not be surprising to see some gun owners with children adopt a position of partial compliance (as did the majority of gun owners in the JUH article on gun storage rates) either by locking at least one loaded firearm or unloading at least one unlocked firearm. Nor would it be surprising if those strongly opposed to the law did not comply at all. There is another important factor working against voluntary compliance. Since the early 2000s, there has been a steady rise in the number and percentage of gun owners who purchase and own a gun primarily for protection rather than for hunting and sport, and an accompanying increase in the number and percentage of handguns that are legally purchased. To expect widespread voluntary compliance from gun owners (with children) who own or possess one or more handguns for protection is unrealistic, since in their mind the whole point of having a gun in the home is defeated by a safe storage law. While there are strong arguments in support of New York’s CAP law, it will take a well-argued and persuasive education program to change minds and achieve widespread compliance.
In conclusion
In conclusion, these new gun control bills coupled with the SAFE Act of 2013 now make New York’s gun laws among the strongest in the nation. As long as the federal government remains politically deadlocked and unable to pass sensible gun control measures, New York has no choice but to do so on its own. The major legislative challenge is to balance public safety with personal liberty, and where this line should be drawn will always be a matter of controversy and debate. But what is not a matter of debate is that our nation is awash in an epidemic of gun violence, and we are fortunate to live in a state whose legislators are committed to making us safer without destroying our Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Resources:
http://childrensfirearmsafetyalliance.com/
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html
https://www.thetrace.org/features/stolen-guns-violent-crime-america/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17155596/gun-ownership-polls-safety-violence
Part 1 of Gun Laws in NYS can be found online at: https://www.owllightnews.com/gun-laws-in-nys-part-1/
