New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed a new “red flag” measure that would empower teachers to have guns removed from the homes of troubled students.
The proposed legislation “would make New York the first state in the nation to empower its teachers and school administrators to prevent school shootings by pursuing court intervention,” according to Cuomo’s official governor’s page.
Today, I am proposing the first-in-the-nation Red Flag bill to empower teachers to keep our students, families and communities safe. While DC refuses to act, New York will lead the fight for common sense gun laws. pic.twitter.com/zOx6bijoiM
— Andrew Cuomo (@andrewcuomo) June 5, 2018
“Right now they are basically powerless,” the governor said of teachers and school officials during a press conference on Tuesday, along with teachers-union leaders Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew as well as other anti-gun advocates including a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student and representatives from March For Our Lives.
“What this says is a teacher has an option,” Cuomo said. “If the teacher wants to protect themselves and protect the students and the teacher has a belief, it gives them a vehicle to do something about it.”
The governor did not see the extreme risk protection order getting through the Republican-controlled state Senate, but vowed New York would not be “intimidated by the gun lobby.”
“While the conservative leadership in Washington remains immobilized by the NRA, in New York we refuse to be intimidated by the gun lobby and will continue to take action to protect the people of our state,” Cuomo said. “Across the nation, students and communities are taking to the streets to demand change, and we are once again picking up the mantle of leadership from Washington with common sense measures to target the roots of school shootings, and prevent gun violence, tragedies and heartbreak.”
According to Cuomo’s official page:
Under current state law, firearms may be removed from a person subject to a temporary order of protection issued by a criminal or family court, but a court can only issue a temporary order of protection in connection with a criminal or family offense proceeding. No law currently exists in New York State that enables a court to issue an order to temporarily seize firearms from a person who is believed to pose a severe threat of harm to himself, herself, or others unless that person has also been accused of a crime or family offense.
This shortcoming in the law persists, despite the fact that family members often contact law enforcement when they fear that a loved one poses a threat of violence to others or themselves. In addition, no state in the nation currently empowers its teachers and school administrators to prevent school shootings by pursuing court intervention.
Safeguards will allegedly be put in place to ensure that “no firearm is removed without due process,” the page explained.
Many called out the governor’s plan as another “gun confiscation scheme” which again does not address the underlying issues.
You and your other liberals politicians have tied the hands of teachers and made it so they can’t punish or suspend kids from school. You created this issue now your plan is to take guns. Just another confiscation scheme.
— Pro 2 a supporter (@2_supporter) June 6, 2018
Why not arrest parents if their kids are bad or take other property as leverage to get them involved? Why is it just guns?
— Pro 2 a supporter (@2_supporter) June 6, 2018
There is no plan that’s the problem. Oh other than take as many guns as I can. Can I confiscate your other property because your kid misbehaves?
— Pro 2 a supporter (@2_supporter) June 6, 2018
Be afraid, be very afraid. Is this the direction you want to take our County o our State? My goodness… https://t.co/14DsSnZJP6
— Paul Disclafani (@pdisco23) June 7, 2018
This is insane. https://t.co/Jo9CYolyOG
— NY2A (@NY2Agrassroots) June 5, 2018
Let me get this straight, his proposed legislation will REMOVE firearms from the home of a troubled child. This is a blatant attack on the second amendment.
Why don’t you propose legislation to allocate special programs to help psychologically troubled children.
— Kyle A. Williams (@ny124th) June 6, 2018
The beginning of the press conference was interrupted reportedly when a “group of African-American anti-gun advocates invited to join Cuomo complained they were told to sit in the back and not speak,” according to the New York Post.
“You called us here under false pretenses,” Shanduke McPhatter of Gangtas Making Astronomical Community Change shouted at Cuomo.
Watch the full video of the governor’s press conference below:
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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