WE ALREADY HAVE GUN CONTROLS BUT THE LAWS ARE NOT BEING ENFORCED

NY already has powerful laws to prevent gun violence — but the state isn’t implementing them 

 

By Tom Suozzi

 

 

New York Post 

June 5, 2022

 

 

New York residents want their leadership to step up and begin enforcing gun laws that are already in place

 

In response to the bloody, racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket, the Legislature just passed a package of gun-control measures. That’s good.

But New York had already passed laws in response to mass gun violence — that aren’t being enforced. Executive leadership and effective implementation are also key to preventing bloodshed.

After the Parkland, Fla., high-school shooting, the Legislature enacted the Extreme Risk Protection Order law that lets a state judge issue an order barring an individual from buying firearms. That red-flag order would turn up on a background check if the person attempts to buy a gun.

The 18-year-old Buffalo shooter should never have been allowed to purchase a gun, let alone an AR-15-style weapon, and the court could have been petitioned to take away his guns once he did buy them.

The law was specifically designed for a person like him. It should have prevented the butchery from ever happening. It didn’t.

He made online threats, telling a teacher that after graduation he would commit “murder and suicide.” School officials contacted the state police, who brought him to a hospital for a mental-health evaluation. He was released after a day and a half — and then dropped off everyone’s radar.

 

Payton Gendron, the accused Buffalo shooter, allegedly killed ten innocent people

 

This is the perfect example of a legislature passing a good law only for the governor to not enforce and help implement it.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has been in office for 10 months, and the law still has not been implemented — nor has implementation been made a priority since the massacre.

We must publicize the red-flag law, touring the state and educating the public, schools and police with the same fervor the government had on COVID prevention. We must provide proper training and let everyone know about this effective tool and how to use it. Perhaps school officials, mental-health workers, the state police or even family members would have petitioned the court to take away or prevent access to the Buffalo shooter’s guns.

 

Gov. Kathy Hochul paid her respects to the Buffalo supermarket memorial, but residents want her to do more to protect them

In January, I released a 15-point crime intervention and prevention plan that specifically demanded the state “fully implement New York’s Red Flag Law to educate the public, law enforcement, social workers, and others that New York’s courts have the power to prevent ‘dangerous’ people from having access to firearms.”

I did so after the murder of two NYPD officers by a mentally ill man whose mother said had been in and out of treatment. Maybe if his mother knew he was mentally unstable and had guns, she could have used the red-flag law to remove his guns — if she had only known about the law.

I saw then that there was no statewide plan to promote the red-flag law. The law had been sadly underused, with fewer than 600 one-year bans granted.

Look, it wasn’t the law that failed, it was the system.

Laws don’t self-administer. They don’t enforce themselves. Executive leadership does. That’s the primary role of the executive branch.

 

Legislatures took immediate action to keep children safe after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

In yet another example of a good law not implemented, in January 2013, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Legislature passed the SAFE Act, which among other things sought to prevent criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from buying guns. One of its key components: the establishment of a New York gun-ammunition database geared toward tracking ammunition sales.

Would it surprise you to learn that after nine years, that database is still not in operation? Nine years of administrative neglect, red tape and delay. Nothing has been done.

New York needs a governor to lead the statewide fight against crime — and 69% of New Yorkers say Hochul has failed on crime.

More concerning, as a member of Congress, she earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association and took campaign contributions from the gun lobby.

New York needs a proven executive who can tackle crime. As Nassau County executive, directing the 12th-largest police department in the country, I enhanced community policing, reformed police procedures and instituted smarter deployment of resources. Nassau County had its lowest crime rates in decades.

While I am hoping these new laws will help prevent a future mass murder, New York’s daily death toll will keep rising until we have a governor who makes crime his or her No. 1 priority.