Bill Text: NY K01028 | 2021-2022 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Urging the United States Congress to reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 30-0)

Status: (Passed) 2022-06-02 - adopted [K01028 Detail]

Download: New_York-2021-K01028-Introduced.html

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Assembly Resolution No. 1028

BY: M. of A. Rules (Wallace)

        URGING the United States Congress to reinstate the
        Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994

  WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to urge the United
States  Congress  to  reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994,
which was passed in an effort to prevent mass shootings; and

  WHEREAS, The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was  a  subsection  of  the
Violent  Crime  Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a United States
federal law which included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian
use of certain semi-automatic firearms  that  were  defined  as  assault
weapons  as  well  as  certain ammunition magazines that were defined as
large capacity magazines, detachable firearm magazines  which  can  hold
more  than  10 rounds of ammunition; large capacity bans are an integral
component of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban because they also apply  to
semiautomatic firearms without military-style features; and

  WHEREAS, Assault weapons equipped with a large capacity magazine are
designed to fire bullets at higher velocities than handguns, and victims
who are struck by multiple rounds are 60 percent more likely to die than
those struck by a single bullet; and

  WHEREAS,  On  September  13, 1994, the 10-year ban was passed by the
United States Congress, and was signed into law by former President Bill
Clinton on the same day; the ban only applied  to  weapons  manufactured
after the date of the law's enactment; and

  WHEREAS,  After the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired on September
13,  2004,  several  constitutional  challenges   were   filed   against
provisions of the ban, however, all were rejected by the courts; and

  WHEREAS,  After  the ban expired, assault weapons and large capacity
magazines once again became legal to manufacture and purchase; since the
expiration of the ban, these types of weapons have been used in some  of
the  Nation's worst modern-day shootings, including most recently on May
14, 2022, in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were fatally shot  in  a
grocery  market  and  on  May  24,  2022,  in  Uvalde,  Texas,  where 19
elementary children and two teachers were fatally shot; and

  WHEREAS, According to a 2017 Journal of Urban Health study,  assault
weapons   and  other  high-capacity  semiautomatics  together  generally
account for 22 to 36 percent of crime guns, with some estimates  upwards
of  40 percent for cases involving serious violence including murders of
police officers; and

  WHEREAS,   Trend   analyses   also   indicate   that   high-capacity
semiautomatics  have  grown  from  33 to 112 percent as a share of crime
guns since the expiration of the federal ban, a trend that has coincided
with recent growth in shootings nationwide; and

  WHEREAS, Moreover, law enforcement recovery of assault weapons  fell
nationwide while the ban was in place; and

  WHEREAS,  According  to  further  research,  gun  massacres  fell 37
percent while the ban was in place, and rose by  183  percent  after  it
expired; and

  WHEREAS,  A  2019  study  examined  mass shootings from 1981 through
2017, and found that during the 10-year period the federal  ban  was  in
effect,  mass  shooting  fatalities were 70 percent less likely to occur
than either before or after the ban; and

  WHEREAS, Today, almost two decades after the Federal Assault Weapons
Ban expired, there are approximately 15 million assault weapons  in  the
United States; and

  WHEREAS,  The  State of New York's gun laws have decreased access to
certain firearms; 74 percent of guns recovered from New York  originated
from six states with weaker gun laws; and

  WHEREAS,  We  as  the governing body of the State of New York, along
with the members of our Congressional Delegation, implore the  President
of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives to reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, in
order to decrease  the  frequency  of  mass  shootings  leading  to  the
senseless  deaths of thousands of innocent Americans; now, therefore, be
it

  RESOLVED, That copies of this  Resolution,  suitably  engrossed,  be
transmitted  to  the  President  of the Senate of the United States, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives,  and  to  each  member  of  the
Congressional Delegation from the State of New York.