ALBANY, N.Y. (WENY)-- Following the racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo and the school shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde Texas, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law 10 bills passed by state lawmakers last week aimed at strengthening gun laws. 

Most notably, People under 21 years old can no longer buy semi-automatic rifles, such as an AR-15. New Yorkers will also face stiffer regulations when it comes to buying body armor unless their job requires it. 

Another law signed by Gov. Hochul aims to combat online hate by requiring social media companies to have policies in place to respond to potential threats by: “Requiring data sharing and reporting by law enforcement to state and federal databases,” said Gov. Hochul. 

This package of laws will go into effect on Sunday, September 4th, 2022. 

A breakdown of the bills are as follows: 

• Legislation S.9458/A.10503 : bars purchase of semiautomatic rifles by anyone under age 21 by requiring a license.
• Legislation S.9407-B/A.10497 : Prohibits purchase of body armor with exception of those in specified professions. 
• Legislation S.9113-A./A.10502: Expands List of People Who Can File Extreme Risk Protection Orders and Requires Law Enforcement to File ERPOs Under Specified Set of Circumstances   
• Legislation S.4116A: Requires semiautomatic pistols manufactured or delivered to any licensed dealer in this state to be capable of microstamping ammunition
• Legislation S.9456/A.10504: Relates to defining firearm; provides that the term firearm shall also include any other weapon that is not otherwise defined containing any component that provides housing or a structure designed to hold or integrate any fire control component that is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by action of explosive.
• Legislation S.9229-A/A.10428-A: Relates to the definition of large capacity ammunition feeding device for purposes of the offense of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree; and repeals section 265.36 of the penal law
• Legislation S.89-B/A.6716-A:  creates the crimes of making a threat of mass harm and aggravated making a threat of mass harm.
• Legislation S.4511-A/A.7865: A requires social media networks in New York to provide a clear and concise policy regarding how they would respond to incidents of hateful conduct on their platform and maintain easily accessible mechanisms for reporting hateful conduct on those platforms
• Legislation S.9465/A.10501: creates a new Task Force on Social Media and Violent Extremism. Housed in the Office of the Attorney General, the Task Force will study and investigate the role of social media companies in promoting and facilitating violent extremism and domestic terrorism online. 

“In New York, we are taking bold, strong action,” said Hochul. “We're tightening the red flag laws to keep guns away from dangerous people and we're raising the age of semi-automatic weapons so no 18-year-old can walk in on their birthday and walk out with an AR-15, those days are over,” said Hochul. 

Tom Reynolds, President of the pro-gun activist group S.C.O.P.E believes it was tragic what happened in both Buffalo and Uvalde but he doesn't believe the gun laws need to be changed as a result of the shooter's actions. 

“They are not killing because they have a gun but because they want to and because they can get away with it,” said Reynolds. 

Citing statistics from the FBI, Reynolds pointed out that homicides throughout a five-year period are lower for all rifles, including but not limited to semi-automatic rifles, than knives, blunt instruments, and hands or feet. 

“We have got to do something to change the culture and the way we look at it, we have to return to moral and ethical values,” said Reynolds. 

Reynolds does not believe that the regulations on guns need to be changed but instead that the culture surrounding guns needs to be changed.

“You will now need a license to use your constitutional right, what’s next,” said Reynolds. “ A license to use your 1st Amendment rights to comment publicly about licensing laws?” 

According to EveryTown, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun control, 1 in 3 mass shootings involved a shooter that was legally prohibited from possessing firearms at the time of the shooting.

Reynolds continued on by saying that if the state of New York wanted real change it would have gotten rid of bail reform and gun-free zones as shooters target those areas on purpose. 

“The left likes to talk about the Buffalo shooter and the Uvalde shooter but the Buffalo shooter said he chose New York because of its strict gun laws, which made armed opposition less likely,” said Reynolds. "And all schools are gun-free zones, which the Uvalde shooter knew; again, less likely to run into armed opposition.”

Gov. Hochul said that car accidents used to be the number one cause of death for children in New York state but after the state made it illegal to drive in a car without a seat belt, that number lowered significantly, she believes the same will happen with gun laws. 

“This is a crisis, the scale of which requires a national response at the federal level and from each and every state. But here in New York, we don't wait, we lead,” said Hochul. “We already have the strongest laws in the nation, but even that's not enough because when we see loopholes, we close them.”