Tighter gun regulations in New York aim to curb mass shootings
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New York Governor signs several bills increasing gun regulations and most importantly prohibiting residents under the age of 21 to own semiautomatic firearms.
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New York became the first city to enact major gun control initiatives following a rampage in mass shootings
Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law that prohibits New Yorkers under the age of 21 to buy semiautomatic guns. With that, New York became the first city to enact major gun control initiatives following a rampage of deadly mass shootings across the country.
Hochul also signed another 10 pub safety-related bills. Most importantly, one of the signed bills will necessitate microstamping in new firearms. The government hoped this would help law enforcement solve several crimes. A second bill revised the ‘red flag’ law which allows US courts to temporarily confiscate people’s guns whenever dubbed a public or personal threat.
“In New York, we are taking bold, strong action. We’re tightening red flag laws to keep guns away from dangerous people,” said Hochul at a press conference in the Bronx.
Read more: A gun is worth a thousand Nazi words
This comes after a series of mass shootings that have taken place in the US with a few that shook the country. In Buffalo, New York, 18-year-old Payton Gendron carried out a mass shooting on Saturday afternoon, May 14, at a supermarket. The spree has claimed the lives of at least 10 black people and was live-streamed on Twitch. The Twitch shooter was a young white supremacist; a Nazi sympathizer.
In the latest shooting spree in the US, two women were shot and killed outside an Ames Church in Iowa and two people were injured in a shooting during a Wisconsin funeral.
Republicans and Democrats once again have shown a sharp divide in their approach to containing gun violence. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas had stated that after the Uvalde school shooting that the government should boost school security and mental health facilities, but he was confident that tighter gun regulations will be merely ineffective in containing mass shootings.
