S.4598 (Bailey)/A.4917 (Anderson)   Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children and teens in New York and nationally.  In communities with the highest rates of gun violence, children and teens experience frequent threats to their health and safety, leading to the misperception that gun carrying will keep them safer. Evidence-based,trauma-informed anti-violence education programs–when taught by credible messengers–have been shown to result in an attitudinal shift towards gun carrying and increased community connection and advocacy skills among youth. The School Anti-Violence Education Act establishes a fund within the New York State Department of Education to support school-based and/or school affiliated anti-violence programs in areas of New York disproportionately impacted by violence.  

S.6980A (Mayer) / A.7517A (Benedetto)  This legislation would require school districts to provide annually to parents information about New York’s laws regarding firearm storage, as well as other resources on safe storage. Every day, 8 children (aged 0 to 17) are unintentionally injured or killed by family fire. Family fire is a shooting involving an improperly stored or misused gun in the home.  Safe storage education programs have been shown to lead to behavioral changes in the storage practice of parents who have firearms in their homes.  This bill would establish a low cost and efficient way for New York to take action and save lives by educating parents and guardians about the safe and secure storage of firearms.

2364A (Bailey) /A.7302 (Jackson)   NYS SNUG  is run out of New York’s Department of Criminal Justice Services and is implemented in nine cities: Albany, Buffalo, Mt. Vernon, Nassau County, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse, Troy and Yonkers.  Operation SNUG is the second statewide implementation of the Cure Violence model which employs community-based  organizations who provide programs and services including but not limited to educational,  youth  justice,  gang  prevention,  social work and street outreach that aim to reduce, prevent or respond  to  gun  violence. SNUG was launched in 2009 with $4 million allocated from the New York State Legislature.  New York City also supports eight sites across five boroughs through its Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Operation SNUG currently relies on the legislature and Governor to approve funding for this initiative as a part of the state budget each year.  This bill would codify Operation SNUG and require the Governor to include an annual appropriation of at least 30 million dollars in the executive budget for the division to maintain and expand these programs statewide.

S.6537(Gounardes) /A6665 (Simon):  Research has shown that there is limited proof showing the value and effectiveness of active shooter drills for preventing school shootings or protecting the school community when shootings do occur.  On the other hand, there is evidence that excessive and unregulated lockdown drills can be harmful and traumatic to the mental health of students and teachers.  Under current state law, schools are mandated to implement emergency response drills 12 times a year and 4 must be “lockdown drills”.  The law lacks sufficient training and implementation requirements or guidelines leaving schools to use their discretion to determine when, how, and why these lockdown drills should be carried out.  

This legislation would reduce the number of required lockdown drills per year (from 4 to 1) and requires that such drills be implemented with a trauma-informed approach.  In addition, the school will be required to give parents at least 7 days notice before the drill is carried out and gives parents and guardians the discretion to opt out.  Accommodations must also be made for students who have post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental or physical disabilities that make drills harmful and training would also be regulated and required to ensure the justification provided to students is age appropriate and trauma-informed. 

S.8479 (Myrie) /No Same As: A merchant category code (MCC) is an identifier used by 

banks and credit card companies to identify purchases made from everything from candy stores to snowmobile retailers, and is used to spot transaction patterns and possible fraud.  However, New York State and most every other state (except California) does not have an MCC for firearm transactions.  This new bill would create an MCC for gun sales and could be used to report suspicious purchasing patterns of firearms and ammunition to law enforcement.  This report is key in preventing mass shootings as in 8 out of the 13 mass shootings that killed 10 or more people between 2007 and 2018, killers financed their attacks with credit card purchases —many made only weeks before the shootings.