When it comes to storing a firearm, I can be kind of a pain talking about the importance of securing your guns. What I'm not, though, is an advocate of mandatory storage laws in any way, shape, or form. It's not a hypocrisy on my part, either. I don't want the government involved, in part because it's the government, but also because no law can account for all the situations out there.
But it's the law in quite a few places, and it's a fairly easy sell to lawmakers who need to Do Something™ to appease the electorate. That's a shame.
Most of the time, it's about keeping guns out of the hands of children, so it reads like it. People who don't have kids, nor children who come in and out of their home, don't need to worry.
Unless you live in New York, which took a bad rule and made it worse. Among other things.
New York has broadened ammunition background-check rules and approved gun-storage requirements that will apply even in households without children or people prohibited from possessing weapons.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the two measures Wednesday. The ammunition restriction takes effect immediately, while the main storage provisions and related offenses in Francesco's Law take effect 90 days after enactment.
...Francesco's Law, A.1962-B/S.9629, removes a condition that tied the general storage requirement to living with a child or someone barred from possessing a gun. Under the amended text, owners and custodians must secure a rifle, shotgun or firearm whenever it is outside their immediate possession or control.
They can comply by locking the weapon in an appropriate safe-storage container or rendering it incapable of firing with a locking device suitable for that weapon.
A qualifying container must prevent unauthorized access, require a key, keypad, combination or another unlocking mechanism, and resist fire, impact and tampering. Stricter storage requirements imposed by local laws remain in place.
The law also retains specific vehicle rules: an unattended weapon must be unloaded, locked in an appropriate container and kept out of sight from outside the vehicle. A glove compartment does not qualify as a safe-storage container.
There is an exception for police in the performance of their duties, but I legitimately don't see a single reason why that should be the case. I mean, in the holster and on your person is "in use," right? The owner has control of the gun and no one is gaining access to it.
Regardless, this just makes it harder for people to defend themselves in the event of a break-in. Unlocking a weapon when the adrenaline is flowing is difficult at best, and there's absolutely nothing in this law that makes anyone safer.
Even if you support mandatory storage laws as a way to keep kids from accessing weapons, how does this help? This goes beyond those who have a kid in the household and catches literally everyone, including the single woman living in a rough New York City neighborhood, or the mother whose teenage daughter has a stalker that she's worried about.
Nothing about this doesn't disgust me.
The ammo background check requirements seem weird.
The second measure, S.7236/A.7983, adds a requirement to the state's ammunition background-check law. A purchase must be denied if the buyer is prohibited from possessing a rifle or shotgun under New York law, federal law or a temporary or final extreme risk protection order.
So, it didn't look at prohibited status before?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of these laws. If gun laws worked as advertised, you would need these laws, and these are going to work even less because ammo isn't serialized and can't be in any practical way.
But if you're going to have it on the books, and it's not looking to see if someone's prohibited, then what the hell is it doing?
