One bill signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul last week requires gun stores to post warnings that purchasing a firearm significantly raises the risk of suicide, fatal accidents to children and lethal domestic violence in people’s homes.
A second bill signed by Hochul bans “pistol converters” – devices that convert semiautomatic pistols into machine guns.
A third bill will create better monitoring of sales of firearms and ammunition.
Will this end the carnage in a country in which guns took the lives of more than 48,000 people in 2022 – 132 a day, one every 11 minutes?
No, but it is a step in the right direction that will save lives. It also acknowledges an important idea—there is no single answer to what Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention has termed a public health crisis.
The new legislation requires signs that state: “Warning. Access to a weapon or firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide, death during domestic disputes, and/or unintentional deaths to children, household members and others. If you or a loved one is experiencing distress and/or depression, call the national suicide lifeline at 988.”
These are not idle claims.
In 2022, over 27,032 people died by firearm suicide, 19,651 died by firearm homicide, 463 died by unintentional gun injury, and an estimated 643 were fatally shot by law enforcement, according to a study by John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study reports that an average of more than 200 Americans also visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries each day.
For the third straight year, the study adds, firearms killed more children and teens, ages 1 to 17, than any other cause, including car crashes and cancer.
The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is nearly 25 times higher than in other high-income countries. The firearm suicide rate is almost 10 times that of other high-income countries.
Yes, we have a problem.
Against an admittedly low bar, New York State is relatively safe, ranking fifth in the country in terms of gun deaths at 2.49 per 100,000, only trailing Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New Jersey.
This is no surprise. States with lower gun ownership rates and stricter laws have lower death rates.
The states with the highest death rates are Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama and Missouri. Mississippi has a rate of 10.48 deaths per 100,000.
Yes, there should be national legislation to bar weapons of war such as AR-15s, require universal background checks and create red flags laws that bar people who pose a risk from possessing weapons.
But in a country in which there are more guns than people, that is not nearly enough.
Mass shootings, as terrifying as they are, only represent 1% of gun deaths in this country.
The Biden administration was successful in getting gun safety legislation approved in 2022 – a month after the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school killed 19 children and two adults. That attack came 10 days after a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket killed 10 Black people.
The legislation included incentives for states to pass so-called red flag laws that allow groups to petition courts to remove weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.
That appears to have had a positive impact as gun violence has decreased in the past two years. But nothing has been done since then, and depending on the outcome of the November elections, nothing may be done in the foreseeable future, even as the death rate remains too high.
The solution is the type of incremental changes made in New York, including at lower levels of government.
Westchester County has required warnings in gun stores since 2022.
The “pistol converter” legislation enacted last week bars devices that alter legal semiautomatic pistols to allow the handguns to fire on full automatic mode, shooting far more bullets with a single pull on the trigger. The measure also requires the firearms industry to take “reasonable steps” to prevent the installation of pistol converters.
The third gun control law requires special coding in credit card transactions to show when firearms and ammunition are purchased. The law allows financial institutions to flag “suspicious purchasing patterns.”
This incremental approach is consistent with how we have addressed other public health issues, including cars, cigarettes, and alcohol.
Alcohol still kills 140,000 Americans a year and cigarette smoking 480,000, but those numbers are well below what the death toll would be without many incremental changes. Only car deaths have dropped below those of guns thanks to things like seat belts, air bags, padded dashboards and drunk driving laws.
Northwell Health will host its 6th Annual Gun Violence Prevention Forum in February 2025. The forum aims to bring together leading executives, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers to discuss gun violence as a public health emergency.
We urge Hochul and the state Legislature to continue to do the same.
