New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed six laws aimed at reducing gun violence.
The Democrat was joined by former Arizona Congresswoman and gun safety advocate Gabby Giffords for a bill signing ceremony on Wednesday. The latest actions by the governor come as her office says gun violence is down 47 percent since she took office in 2021.
To learn more about the new gun laws and how the state measures gun crime, WAMC spoke with New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray.
Jackie Bray: Governor Hochul has made public safety really central to what she is doing as governor, and we all know we just cannot thrive as a state if we feel unsafe. And during the pandemic, obviously gun violence across the country, including here, rose, and as you said it's now down 47%. When we say gun violence, what we mean is a gun crime that leads to injury, right? So if there is the use of a firearm and it leads to injury, that's gun violence. That's sort of the simplest way I can say that. When we look at, sort of, the progress we're making, you know, when we say 47% down, that's in New York City, plus these 28 other jurisdictions where we've invested significant dollars to reduce gun crime, and we've done that in multiple ways. Some of that is in programs of violence interrupters, which are folks that go into communities to reduce retaliatory violence. Some of that is in employment programs, because you want to make sure that young people who might, you know, find themselves in situations where they, you know, get in with the wrong crowd. Have other things and productive things to do. Some of that's investment in law enforcement - and so Governor Hochul has really taken in all of the above approach. But when we say gun violence is down 47% what we mean is that the number of gun crimes, the uses of guns that lead to injury is down 47% since she took office.
Lucas Willard: So, let's look at some of the specific pieces of legislation that were signed by the governor yesterday. One of them is requiring firearms dealers to post a warning at the places where guns are sold. And to me, this is similar to, if you go to a convenience store and you see posters on the wall warning of the dangers of cigarettes. Is that the same idea here?
Jackie Bray: Same idea, you know, I grew up, you know, walking into delis and walking into bodegas and, you know, seeing the warnings. And if you buy a pack of cigarettes, you're going to see that warning. We all know how bad it is to smoke, and it is really bad ... .it is really dangerous, I should say, to own certain types of guns. It's really dangerous to own guns when you don't have proper storage. And we want to make sure that New Yorkers know that. Really terrifyingly, you're more likely to be killed by a gun in this country than you are in a car accident. Our kids are more likely to be killed through gun violence than they are through disease. And you know those, those are things that consumers should know. And so these signs, exactly like for tobacco, are to warn of the dangers of irresponsible gun ownership. This isn't about responsible gun ownership. It's not about people that know how to use guns and, you know, have the right licenses and have the right permits and have the right training and have the right storage. It's about making sure that we're warning people of the dangers of what having a gun can can do to you and your family.
Lucas Willard: Another bill that was signed by the governor would ban what are called pistol converters to basically transform a semi automatic pistol to fire bullets more rapidly. This comes after the Supreme Court, in June, struck down a ban on bump stocks, is this legislation meant as sort of a workaround or a back to the drawing board after the bump stock ban?
Jackie Bray: Well, here's what I would say about that. You know, I'm the Homeland Security Commissioner, right? And often when I deal in violence and gun violence. I'm talking about mass violence, unfortunately. And if you look at the two instances of sort of large mass violence in New York State in 2022 we had one on the New York City subway in in Brooklyn, and we had one in the Tops supermarket in Buffalo. And no one died in the in the former, and 10 New Yorkers died in the latter. And one of the big distinctions there was the type of weapon used. It is just simply so much more dangerous when you have weapons that can fire at such a rapid clip. There is no, you know, outside of war - there is no reason New Yorkers need to fire weapons in that way and so this is absolutely meant to make sure that people cannot retrofit legal guns to do things that are already illegal if you were purchasing it in the first place.
Lucas Willard: Another piece of legislation is meant to modernize the state's red flag law. What can you tell me about the red flag laws that are on the books in New York, and why do you believe they were in need of updating?
Jackie Bray: We have nation leading red flag laws, and that's really thanks to our governor after the terrorist attack in Buffalo in May of 2022, our governor, you know, and this legislature, passed new, stronger red flag laws. They are the best in the country. They've been used 22,000 times to make sure that people who really should not have access to deadly weapons don't have access to deadly weapons. It's up about 1300% the use of these since, since the governor took office. But you know, we're making some changes here. One, we're making a registry so that we have all the data in one place, so that it's accessible to all of our law enforcement agencies to we're making it smoother for our local law enforcement agencies to seek these, what are called extreme risk protection orders, or, you know, sort of seek the red flag designation, because these red flag laws work. They're working better in New York than they're working anywhere else, but we can always improve
Lucas Willard: What about safe storage? I see one of the bills in this package also is related to the storage of firearms at home.
Jackie Bray: Yeah, listen, I think that the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans and New Yorkers who own guns want to be responsible gun owners. I mean, I think we should be really clear about that, and I think this governor is really clear eyed about that. And so a lot of this is about giving people the tools and the information they need to be responsible gun owners. That's about posting the signs, like we said, the tobacco-esque warnings. It's also about making sure that when you get licensed to have a pistol, that you are provided immediately upon getting licensed, information about safe storage. You know, when I go to the pharmacy and I pick up a new medication, I get three pages of information about how to take that medication. When you get a pistol and legally are able to use that pistol, you should get information at that point about how to use that pistol safely, and part of that is storage, and so we're going to make that required here in the state.
Lucas Willard: So Commissioner Bray, I want to turn to the hurricanes that have swept through, most recently, Milton, down in Florida. But just a few days ago, Helene, which swept up through the southern US. What is New York doing, as far as mutual aid goes in assisting with the recovery efforts that will be underway after Milton and the ongoing recovery from Helene?
Jackie Bray: Yeah, man, my heart breaks watching what's playing out in the southeast, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and now Florida again. And you know it's early the day after Milton, and we're not going to know for many hours the full extent of that damage. And these storms are getting bigger, and this is becoming a new normal. And what that means for someone in a job like mine is that we all are going to have to pitch in that. It would be unreasonable to assume that North Carolina would have the resources in state to deal with a flood of that type of biblical proportion, and so states across the country, but really New York, in a big, big way, are stepping up to send mutual aid in. We have nearly 300 people at this point from the state deployed to the southeast. About 220 deployed to support operations around recovery and response from Helene and and about 65 or 70 deployed to support operations in terms of response to Milton. Those are in a bunch of different types of teams. We've got three swift water rescue teams that deployed. We have two what we call incident management teams. These are teams that go in to help, you know, relieve sort of burdens on the emergency managers there. The State incident management team has been embedded with the city of Asheville, North Carolina, which we've heard so much about. They've taken over what we call points of distribution, which is basically setting up places where people can come and get water and people can come and get MREs. New York City's got a team that's embedded out in North Carolina doing similar things at the county level. And so, you know, we're really it, what we have said to our counterparts down there is anything you need. We've got four 100 kilowatt generators that are camped out in Georgia right now powering things like hospitals and water treatment. So, so I think that, given the strength and the scale and the scope of these storms, you know, we're all just pitching in.
