Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces New Concealed Carry Laws Passed in Response to Reckless Supreme Court Decision Take Effect September 1, 2022

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Here we are. Today, we're here to provide an update on what our administration, working with the Adams administration, has been doing to ensure responsible gun ownership, as well as protecting New Yorkers from gun violence. And I wish this wasn't a topic we needed to talk about today. Had there not been a decision by the Supreme Court at the end of June, we would not be having this conversation, but the reality is that we're in the middle of a national gun violence crisis. It's claimed the lives of too many Americans, too many new Yorkers, and as inflicted trauma on communities all across our state. And I'm not just talking about New York City, I have been to our upstate cities and visiting them and also dealing with the spectrum of what's going on in our smaller communities as well. So, the pain has touched everyone. There's no one immune from the pain of gun violence. Whether it's the day to day gun violence that plagues cities, plagues individuals, families from here to Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, or the mass shooting that occurred in Buffalo on May 14th when an 18-year-old with nothing but pure hate in his heart took the lives of 10 Black New Yorkers who were doing nothing more than shopping in a grocery store, 10 minutes from where I live in the City of Buffalo. So, that tragedy was still raw. Lot of heartbreak, a lot of anger, a lot of uncertainty.

And what is so shocking just weeks after that traumatic event, the Supreme Court decided at a time when people were still mourning, they decided to strip away the rights of a governor to protect her citizens from gun violence by striking down a 100-year-old law, 100-year-old law that limits who can carry concealed weapons. So at a time when we're having a national reckoning on gun safety, what we can do to protect our citizens, that decision wasn't just negligent, it was reprehensible. Reprehensible, and they removed long standing limitations that we used here in New York. No one had challenged before. We lived with it, and it took away limitations on who can carry them. Taking away the ability to say, "Maybe not you because of a propensity that you've demonstrated or a record, or, you know, what rational people would agree." Someone should not be able to be licensed to carry a weapon, not just carry, a concealed weapon. And they took away that right, but we don't need more guns on our streets. We definitely do not. We've been working very, very hard removing thousands of guns that have been coming into our streets illegally from other states. We don't need guns on our streets. We don't need people carrying guns in our subways. We don't need people carrying guns in our schools. We don't need people carrying guns in our places of worship. We don't need them carrying them into bars or restaurants because that only make people less safe.

And here's the proof because everyone has this theory about the good guy with a gun in his hand and how that's going to prevent violence. And I'm here to just dispel that right now, once and for all. We've had our sensible gun safety laws and concealed carry laws we've had on the books for over 100 years. With that law, we are the fifth lowest in the nation in terms of firearm related deaths. Want some more proof? Let's look at the numbers of other states where people can have weapons, conceal them, carry them where they like. Mississippi has 28 deaths per hundred thousand by firearm.

Louisiana, 26 per hundred thousand deaths by firearm annually. 25 per hundred thousand in Wyoming. Missouri 24 per hundred thousand. Alabama, 23. You know what New York State is? 5.3 deaths per a hundred thousand. So, this whole concept that a good guy with a gun will stop the bad guys with a gun, it doesn't hold up. It doesn't hold up. And the data bears us up, so that theory's over. Yet, the Supreme Court with all this data, with all this knowledge, with a law that was working just fine in our state, decide to take us backwards, possibly opening the door to more tragedies when people can carry guns concealed. Makes it harder for law enforcement. I'm sure you'll hear about the challenges that this has created now for our law enforcement community, but we're not deterred. We didn't back down. We stood up and fought back.

And as Governor, my number one responsibility is keeping New Yorkers safe. That's why, when it came down the Supreme Court decision, we are ready for it. We knew this case was on the docket since last fall, we worked with legal experts from all over the country. I mentioned the Gifford Center, Everytown, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. We went to academic institutions, we went to thought leaders, and we prepared for this moment. And what I had to do, in the aftermath of that decision, even though the legislature was done for the session this year, due back in January, I said, "We've got to call you back. You've got to come back. We need you. Your state needs you right here right now." So, we called an extraordinary session - that's what it's called - and it was an extraordinary session. Because the legislature - and I want to thank our leaders Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie for bringing everyone back with that sense of urgency, which was genuinely real. And what we had to do is come back within days, and say to Supreme Court Justices, those in the majority who want to take us backwards, "We're not going there with you. We're going to stand up, pass smart legislation." And that's what I signed immediately.

So, let's get in the details of what these laws will do. Under the Supreme Court's ruling, they would say anyone who wants a concealed carry permit could easily get one. We had a standard in place, that you had have a proper cause, you had to have a rationale for it. So, we have to deal with the fact that we believe that people will be able to secure these onto the ruling should go have a more comprehensive background check, and an in-person interview. Household members' contact information, as well as reviewing social media. They also will undergo a 16-hour classroom training and a two-hour live firearm training safety course. And we will be the first state to require training for firearm permits, but it makes sense. Under the old laws, some counties required, but many did not. So, it's time to standardize this across the State of New York.

So, it's time to standardize this across the State of New York. We developed new standards. It'll include training, make sure that gun owners have the skills, the knowledge necessary to carry, to store their guns because we're not stripping the right away. We're just saying you have to do it in a very responsible way. And we believe that the training is going to be significant and educate them about other topics, how to keep people safe. Conflict de-escalation because when people are in conflict and they happen to be legally carrying concealed weapons now, there's a high risk that'll escalate into something that is going to be fatal.

Talk about suicide prevention, use of deadly force, and all this is going to occur because of our response that we're now going to raise the bar and make sure that people are truly responsible gun owners once they receive a permit.

And what else did the Supreme Court do to jeopardize safety in our streets, which is the only way you can, the only conclusion you could draw from what they did? They said that those who have concealed carry permits can pretty much take them anywhere they want. In response, we had to come up with a list of sensitive locations where guns are prohibited.

These sensitive locations will include schools, colleges, daycares, libraries, restaurants that serve alcohol, other places, parks, places, people visit work. We have a whole list. We have a long website, encourage you to look at that. And also, we added Times Square. The Supreme Court said you cannot carve out the entire borough of Manhattan, for example. We did not. We were rational. We asked the City to partner with us, the City Council. And I thank you. You'll hear more about what they have done to make sure that people coming to a place as iconic and heavily trafficked as Times Square will feel safe. And that was important to all of us. So that is going to be in effect as of tomorrow as well.

We also bolstered our safe storage requirements. Our law created the presumption that if doesn't want to carry a weapon, someone in a store doesn't want them to someone to carry a weapon in, they won't be able to do so. We left, firearms in vehicles had to be locked.

A lot of firearms are stolen out of vehicles. They have to be locked. And also, if you live in a household with children under 18, their house, the gun has to be stored legally. So other changes are coming. As I mentioned, you know, 18-year-olds not being able to purchase assault weapons, that's good. We're making sure that information is out there.

And I want to make sure that there's a public education campaign so that people who do legally possess this now under the Supreme Court ruling will understand that there are rules of the road that you must follow. And law enforcement will be making sure that you do follow these. That is what we're doing here in the State of New York to make sure that people are safe.

So, I want to thank everyone who is involved in this, and I'm going to play a video in a couple minutes that shows all the rules that we had to be thoughtful about. We had to make sure that there's a frequently asked questions section so you can reference them. And we're going to continue making sure that as a result of the Supreme Court decision, that we'll fight back. We'll make sure that New Yorkers are safe. But it's not just enough to have the strongest gun laws in the nation.

We also had to double down on other solutions that we know make sense. That's why we, in our budget, we have an historic $227 million investment in gun violence prevention. It is far better to prevent the crimes. Giving alternatives to young people, trying to have safe streets investing in our law enforcement so they have the tools they need, which we believe is an important priority. So, we've tripled the amount of money that has been allocated in the past for these purposes.

We also expanded our red flag laws. We talked about this, the red flag law, commonsense, opposed by many, which is shocking to me. But all it does is say when you see the signs, the dots are there waiting to be connected, you have a right to connect them and say yes, based on these signs, this individual could do harm to themselves or to others, and therefore should not have access to firearms. So, we expanded those laws.

The number of Orders of Protection, extreme Order of Protections filed by our own State Police, is up 94 percent. It's extraordinary. We talked about what we're doing here in the City, Suffolk County's number one in the state in terms of issuing these red flag orders. They're saving lives, but also we want to make sure that we are thoughtful in our response.

So, we also have worked on investing in communities that have high rates of crime. We know where they are. You can draw a map around them, you know exactly where they are, but those communities have been under siege. There's a lot of trauma in those communities. There's people who need mental health services and support services.

Let's help the people who live in those neighborhoods so they don't have to flee. Let's stabilize those neighborhoods as well.

Also, we are reporting, as a result of getting guns off the streets, there are substantial decreases in the homicide rate in this state. That is progress. My concern is with the change in Supreme Court law; we want to make sure that they continue to decline.

That's why these changes were so necessary.

So, real progress has been made. We'll never stand here and say the job is done, but I want New Yorkers to know that we'll always stand up, protect their lives, their livelihoods, their families, their neighborhoods, because that's our responsibility, one I take very seriously. One the Mayor takes very seriously. So, that's what we're laser focused on. All of us are tired of reading the headlines. It has to stop. We have to protect our citizens. And I can guarantee you a full-on, all the above approach, working with partners where relationships did not exist before - bringing in our federal partners state, local. We're doing it all over the State of New York and making real progress. We're not just talking about wanting these changes to happen, we're making them happen right here.

So with that, I want to thank, again, our extraordinary team. I'm so impressed with what you brought to this unbelievable effort here to try and undo the harm done by the Supreme Court of the United States, to the people of the State of New York and other states. We're not giving up the fight. This is too important.

So, what I'd like you to do is see our quick public service announcements. So people who are in search of a concealed carry permit know that there are rules to follow and make sure that they do it responsibly. So, with that.

[Public Service Announcement Plays]

In addition to our public safety campaign, you'll be seeing announcements everywhere, but also, identifying specific locations, such as, you know, parks and others where the guns are not allowed and an important part of that was Times Square.

And again, I want to applaud the City for working so closely with us, but taking on the responsibility of identifying the parameters, getting the message out there. That's what a real partner does. You know, we support each other.