Governor Cuomo To Support National Efforts Against Gun-Violence While De Blasio Announces Crackdown On “Craigslist For Guns”
Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that he will take a “lead role” in national anti-gun violence initiatives via the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence “in an as-yet-unannounced effort demanding that the Justice Department more closely scrutinize so-called bad apple gun merchants, according to people familiar with the campaign,” as told to the New York Times.
According to the Times:
To start, Mr. Cuomo will be among the chief signatories of a letter to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, to be released as early as next week, urging the Justice Department to punish what the Brady Campaign describes as a small fraction of gun dealers who sell an overwhelming share of weapons used to commit crimes. He has promised to lobby other governors around the country to join in the push.
However, Cuomo didn’t specifically address the issue of gun violence and the proliferation of illegal guns in New York City and Brooklyn, which Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has said needs attention since he felt the restriction of automatic weapons sales is different from curtailing or controlling large-caliber handguns more commonly used in urban areas.
The two — Adams and Cuomo — do agree, though that “federal action [is needed to] make a real difference,” as illegal guns are used in New York thanks to a smuggling pipeline coming from Southern states.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has apparently decided that tackling online gun sales is also necessary, such as with ARMLIST — a Craigslist-like secondhand gun sales forum that operates outside of background check laws.
As reported in Kings County Politics:
The Department of Consumer Affairs subpoenaed ARMSLIST, one of the country’s largest online firearms marketplace, earlier this month in an effort to uncover whether sellers have been using the website to advertise and illegally sell secondhand firearms, bypassing city, state, and federal laws.
The city is taking a new approach in combatting the issue. Instead of focusing on ARMSLIST as a whole, the DCA will focus on the sellers using the website.
The crackdown effort has received praise from local residents Public Advocate Letitia James and Councilmember Laurie Cumbo.