After Buffalo shooting, New York takes tougher action on guns

Minimum age (21 years) to buy a semi-automatic rifle, limitation of large capacity magazines: after the racist massacre in Buffalo and the massacre in a school in Texas, the State of New York took a series of measures on Monday to restrict access to firearms.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t solve the problem, but strong actions will,” Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of the fourth-most populous state, said Monday. United States (nearly 20 million inhabitants), where the city of Buffalo is located.

She was speaking on Monday after enacting several laws passed last week by the local parliament.

US President Joe Biden himself called last week for a national ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault rifles, as was the case from 1994 to 2004, or failing to raise the minimum age. purchase of 18 to 21, but the negotiations have so far not resulted in an agreement between Democrats and Republicans.

The two perpetrators of the Buffalo killings (10 African-American deaths in a supermarket on May 14), and of the Uvalde elementary school in Texas (19 children and two teachers killed) were 18 years old and carried this type of weapon .

Behind these two tragedies that shocked the country, shootings are daily in the United States, like those that occurred in Philadelphia (three dead) and Chattanooga (Tennessee, three dead) this weekend.

According to the organization Giffords Law Center, only six American states applied before New York an age threshold of 21 years for the purchase of a semi-automatic rifle.

The set of laws adopted by the State of New York also provides that purchasers of an assault rifle must have a license, synonymous with a background check.

Other measures include a ban on buying or selling bulletproof vests (as the Buffalo shooter wore), except for certain professions such as the police, an extension of professions that can activate a “red flag” procedure ” by reporting a person at risk to the justice system to confiscate his weapon.

New York State already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and was among the five states in the country with the lowest gun mortality in 2020, according to a recent study. from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

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