Package Of Gun Reform Bills Passes NY Senate [POLL]

NEW YORK — A package of gun reform bills, including giving the public the ability to sue gun manufacturers and a 10-day mandatory purchase waiting period, was passed this week by the New York State Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said the Senate Democratic majority has prioritized ending gun violence and making homes and streets safer.

"We must do everything we can to eliminate the scourge of violence that has cut too many lives short and devastated too many families," she said. "By enacting this important legislation, we take another step closer towards further ending gun violence."

The bills have to be passed by the Democratic-majority Assembly before the State Legislature is adjourned June 10.

The laws passed Wednesday by the Senate are:

• Gun Industry Liability Law: imposed accountability on those responsible for illegal or unreasonable sale, manufacture, distribution, importing or marketing of firearms that create a public nuisance and harm to the public.
• Crackdown on Imitation Weapons: Updates the definition of "imitation weapon" to combat harm incurred by realistic toy guns.
• Release of Gun Violence Data: Requires the state to release quarterly reports regarding gun violence data.
• Establishing the Center for Firearm Violence Research: The center would help better understand the causes of gun violence.
• Outstanding Warrant Restrictions: Would make it an explicit crime to purchase a firearm knowing there was an active warrant out for your arrest.
• Jose Webster Untraceable Firearms Act: Prohibits the possession of a ghost gun by anyone other than a licensed gunsmith. Would also prohibit sale of ghost guns entirely.
• Amending the Scott J Beigel Unfinished Receiver Act: Would allow the sale of unfinished receivers to be prosecuted in the first and second degree.
• Mandatory Purchase Waiting Period: Enacts a 10-day waiting period for the purchase of all firearms and would charge any violation as a class A misdemeanor.

Sen. Zellnor Myrie, D-Brooklyn, said his liability law would permit New Yorkers to sue gun companies, Newsday reported.

He said those responsible for the sale, manufacturing or marketing of firearms should be held liable for the public nuisance caused by illegal firearm violence.

Senator Jamaal Bailey, D-Bronx/Mount Vernon, said the enactment of a 10-day waiting period for the purchase of firearms means that weapons don't get into the hands of those who may use them to fulfill malicious intentions.

"The passage of these bills will lower the occurrence of gun violence in our state and works towards making New York State a place where everyone can feel safe," he said.

Sen. Rob Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, said New York already has the toughest gun laws in the United States.

"The bills passed today are about shifting blame away from the real problem," he said in a prepared statement. "Violence is spinning out of control in New York because socialist Democrats have been dismantling our criminal justice system and doing everything they can to prevent cops and district attorneys from doing their jobs."

Ortt said, if the goal is to stop crime, "we should focus on putting dangerous criminals behind bars and keeping them there, not punishing law-abiding New Yorkers or preventing New Yorkers from exercising their constitutional right to protect themselves."

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