New York: New Bill Introduces Ten Day Waiting Period To Buy Firearms

ALBANY, NY –-(Ammoland.com)- A new bill would introduce a mandatory ten-day waiting period for firearms purchases in New York State.

Assembly Bill A449 would establish a ten-day “cooling off” period before a federally licensed dealer could transfer a firearm after a transferee completes a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) 4473 Form and passes a background check through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The new law would apply to handguns, shotguns, and rifles alike. This requirement also applies to firearms that an owner takes to a gunsmith for repairs.

The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale). Ms. Paulin is a staunch anti-gun member of the New York Assembly and has introduced other anti-gun bills in the past, such as New York’s Extreme Risk Protection Order Act. She was joined by co-sponsors Jeffrey Dinowitz, Sandy Galef, Inez E. Dickens, Thomas Abinanti, and several other Assemblymembers.

According to the proposed new law, the gun dealer must keep a written record of everyone they receive a firearm from and transfer a gun to in a logbook. The record must include the time, date, name, occupation, and the residence of the person transferring or receiving the firearm. This requirement far exceeds what is required by the ATF’s 4473 Form or federal law. Gun rights advocates wonder why New York wants to know the occupation of gun owners.

The dealer or gunsmith must also record the make, model, caliber, and serial number of the firearm in accordance with federal record-keeping laws. Per the proposed law, the dealer must submit an electronic copy of the records to the state police and keep another on hand. The new law causes a lot of extra work for the gun dealers, and some believe that the purpose of the law is to discourage people from starting gun shops in the notoriously anti-gun state.

Anti-gun groups have touted waiting periods as a lifesaving measure, but waiting periods have cost people their lives. One state over, in New Jersey, Carol Bowne applied for a gun permit to purchase a firearm. She recently took out a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend and convicted felon Michael Eitel. She was afraid that the man wanted to do her harm.

Knowing that a restraining order is just a piece of paper that Eitel would most likely ignore, Browne sought a gun to protect herself from her obsessed ex-lover. New Jersey has a 30-day waiting period for a permit to buy a gun. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take Eitel 30-days to attack Browne. The crazed man stabbed Browne to death before the state granted her the ability to buy a gun legally.

Browne wasn’t the first person to die because of a waiting period. Another New Jersey resident, Letizia “Lisa” Zindell, was strangled by her boyfriend the night he got out of jail for violating a restraining order demanding he leaves Zindell alone. The woman was also waiting on a permit to buy a firearm.

The New York bill is currently in committee.

This session is the third time the bill has been introduced in the Assembly. It was introduced in the 2017-2018 (A11287) and 2019-2020 (A890) Sessions—both times, the bill stalled in committee.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.