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Release: Cuomo announces 'Make America Safer' campaign for more gun control. Release, transcript, Youtube video.
NYSNYS News






For Immediate Release: 10/26/2019
GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO



AT RED FLAG GUN SAFETY CONFERENCE, GOVERNOR CUOMO LAUNCHES GRASSROOTS EFFORT TO BOLSTER "MAKE AMERICA SAFER" CAMPAIGN

Three Gun Safety Advocacy Groups Join Governor's Call for Democratic Presidential Candidates to Sign the "Make America Safer Pledge," Which Includes Red Flag Law

Social Media Campaign Will Engage and Activate Key Gun Safety Partners and Advocates to Help Insert These Critical Issues into the National Dialogue

Campaign Aims to Push Congress to Enact Common-Sense Gun Safety Measures on the National Level

Governor Hosts Second of Three Summits across the State to Educate Teachers, School Administrators and Parent Representatives on New Gun Safety Law - New Website Provides Information About How and When to File Extreme Risk Protection Orders


Following the second in a series of conferences to raise awareness about the state's Red Flag gun safety law that went into effect this year, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched a grassroots effort to bolster his "Make America Safer" campaign -- a four point plan to curb gun violence on the national level. The Governor has called on Democratic presidential candidates to endorse the "Make America Safer" pledge -- and today Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and March for Our Lives joined the Governor's call for candidates to sign the pledge.

The social media campaign will focus on engaging and activating key coalition partners, advocates and concerned citizens who support the Make America Safer Pledge to help generate greater awareness and insert these important issues into the national dialogue about gun safety, while tracking their efforts across various social media platforms. These combined efforts will help accomplish the common-sense gun safety measures included in the "Make America Safer" campaign on the national level.

"As the federal government continues to abdicate its responsibility to protect the people in this country by failing to take action on meaningful, common sense gun control, it is now more important than ever to have a leader in Washington that has a plan to tackle these issues and end this violence once and for all," Governor Cuomo said. "That is why I'm asking all Democrats running for president to make a simple, clear choice for the American people and sign the "Make America Safer Pledge." New York State passed these laws six years ago and they have worked. No legal gun owners' rights have been violated, but unnecessary, dangerous weapons are off the streets and dangerously mentally ill people cannot by guns. We were the laboratory, and now it must be done on the national level. And if a candidate can't support this pledge, I don't believe they should be running for president as a Democrat."

Following the horrific mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio in August 2019, Governor Cuomo called on the Democratic presidential candidates to support the "Make America Safer Pledge," which includes the following gun safety measures that New York passed in 2013 with the SAFE Act:

Outlaw assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
Create a mental health data base to prevent the dangerously mentally ill from purchasing a firearm
Pass universal background checks closing the private gun sales loophole
Pass Red Flag legislation preventing individuals who pose a risk to themselves or others from purchasing a firearm

Today the Governor also hosted the second of three conferences to help teachers, school administrators and parent representatives understand the new law and how to use it to keep schools safe. The law, part of the nation's strongest gun laws, establishes a new civil procedure that allows a concerned family member, school official or member of law enforcement to obtain a court order - known as an Extreme Risk Protection Order - to remove and keep guns away from individuals who pose a serious risk of harm to themselves or others. This court order specifically prohibits a person from purchasing or possessing a firearm, rifle or shotgun while the order is in effect. The new law became effective August 24, 2019. An additional conference is planned for later this fall in Albany.

At the first conference to raise awareness about the state's Red Flag gun safety law in September, Governor Cuomo announced the launch of a call center and a new website offering information and links to step-by-step instructions about how to apply for an Extreme Risk Protection Order. The call center is staffed by individuals trained to answer inquiries from family members, police and educators. These staff members will have access to extensive resources and contact information for local law enforcement, school officials, the court system and mental health agencies to ensure callers are referred to the appropriate services. The call center, which is now open, can be reached at 877-NYS-0101 and will be operated Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The hotline will also be open today, Saturday, October 26, from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon said, "New Yorkers are safer than ever because of New York's aggressive efforts to reduce the scourge of gun violence, a major public health crisis. New York has shown that it can be done within the contours of our constitutional rights. I thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership and agree that it's time for the rest of the nation to experience the benefits of concerted gun violence prevention measures which protect us all."

Daphne Frias, March for Our Lives New York State Director said, "New York State has long been at the forefront of innovative and life saving gun violence prevention policy. Since the passage of the SAFE Act in 2013, statistics indicate that gun violence has drastically reduced; once again proving that common sense gun legislation does save lives. It is for this reason, that March For Our Lives is proud to support the Make America Safe Pledge. As we are on the precipice of a historic election for our country, it is the responsibility of exemplary states, like New York to ask our presidential candidates to not only speak about acting on gun violence prevention, but to make a pledge to do so. It is in this same vein, that we stand with the Governor today, in his statewide initiative to educate New Yorkers on the effectiveness and proper usage of ERPO's. ERPO's are a strong mechanism for helping to prevent gun violence, and it is our duty a gun violence prevention leaders to educate those in our state on how they can help us prevent necessary tragedy. We thank the Governor, for consistently being a champion of gun violence prevention, and are thrilled to be standing beside him."

Natalie Tevethia, New York Chapter Leader, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said, "Governor Cuomo continues to be a leader on gun violence prevention and we applaud his efforts for making progress where Washington has failed. At today's event he continued highlight the importance of not only passing strong gun laws, but implementing them."

Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, said, "After every mass shooting and gun tragedy, we hear heart-breaking stories of someone knowing something was wrong, that a danger was growing, but they didn't know where to go or what to do. I thank Gov. Cuomo for taking the lead on the issue of gun violence and coming up with ways to break this cycle."

Mark Barden, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sandy Hook Promise said, "Gun violence has plagued our nation for too long, taking innocent lives and ripping apart families in its path. While the federal government ignores this tragic issue, Governor Cuomo has time and again enacted commonsense reforms to protect New Yorkers and help ensure no family is forced to endure the heartbreak of senseless gun violence. The Red Flag Law is just one of the many reforms signed by the Governor and it makes New York the first state in the nation to empower teachers to intervene when they believe someone is a danger to themselves or others."

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, "I've spoken with many educators in Parkland, Florida and heard repeatedly that the shooter showed clear signs that he was a troubled soul. It's no surprise as the Brady Campaign reports 42 percent of mass shooters exhibit warning signs beforehand. That's why the Red Flag Law signed by Governor Cuomo is so important as a part of combatting the gun violence epidemic and protecting students and teachers. Schools should be safe sanctuaries, not armed fortresses. Teachers don't want to be armed, we want to teach and we want to protect kids. This smart law empowers educators and school staff to act and be heard when they suspect danger while still protecting students' due process right. We're proud to stand with the Governor to educate teachers, school administrators and parent representatives about this critical new gun safety law."

Linda Beigel Schulman, Mother of Parkland Victim Scott Beigel, said, "In the absence of leadership in Washington on gun safety, Governor Cuomo and New York have led the way in enacting the strongest gun safety laws in the nation. We've already seen the success of the SAFE Act, and now this year New York has gone even further with the Red Flag Law, which will keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals and help prevent these needless tragedies from happening in the first place. Any person running for president in 2020 should make gun safety a top priority, and I urge all candidates to follow New York's lead and sign the Governor's "Make America Safer" pledge."

Gun violence is plaguing our nation at record levels - 58% of American adults or someone they care for have experienced gun violence in their lifetime. This issue is pervasive and is impacting communities of all social economic status and across all regions.

Following the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2013, Governor Cuomo immediately took action by championing and passing the SAFE Act, which enacted the strongest gun control laws in the nation. Since the passage of the SAFE Act, 139,371 reports from mental health professionals have been received by state officials intended to keep weapons away from people with mental illnesses that are likely to "engage in conduct that will cause serious harm to self or others." These reports - which represent nearly 98,000 people with a potential dangerous mental disposition - are used to notify appropriate local licensing officials who suspend or revoke weapon licenses and prompt local law enforcement officials to remove weapons that are not surrendered.

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For Immediate Release: 10/26/2019
GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO



VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTOS & RUSH TRANSCRIPT: AT RED FLAG GUN SAFETY CONFERENCE, GOVERNOR CUOMO LAUNCHES GRASSROOTS EFFORT TO BOLSTER "MAKE AMERICA SAFER" CAMPAIGN

Three Gun Safety Advocacy Groups Join Governor's Call for Democratic Presidential Candidates to Sign the "Make America Safer Pledge," Which Includes Red Flag Law

Social Media Campaign Will Engage and Activate Key Gun Safety Partners and Advocates to Help Insert These Critical Issues into the National Dialogue

Campaign Aims to Push Congress to Enact Common-Sense Gun Safety Measures on the National Level

Governor Hosts Second of Three Summits across the State to Educate Teachers, School Administrators and Parent Representatives on New Gun Safety Law - New Website Provides Information About How and When to File Extreme Risk Protection Orders

Cuomo: "The times are more dangerous and on this gun issue it is madness that we have not taken action on the federal side... our obligation is to do what we can. We have the Red Flag Law....it is a tool that can save lives if you know how to use it, and that's what today is all about."

Following the second in a series of conferences to raise awareness about the state's Red Flag gun safety law that went into effect this year, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo earlier today launched a grassroots effort to bolster his "Make America Safer" campaign -- a four point plan to curb gun violence on the national level. The Governor has called on Democratic presidential candidates to endorse the "Make America Safer" pledge -- and today Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and March for Our Lives joined the Governor's call for candidates to sign the pledge.

VIDEO of Governor Cuomo's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of Governor Cuomo's remarks is available here.

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

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

Those are some tough acts to follow. First of all thank you all very, very much for being here. I know it's a beautiful Saturday, the sun is shining, but thank you for being here. Let me begin by thanking Mark once again. Mark has been a great advocate. He's always there when we need him. He's been all across the country. He's been in Washington, D.C. And I have such personal respect for Mark and what he's been able to do. I don't know that I, personally, could have done what he is done. That you could take that pain and I believe there's nothing more unnatural than losing a child. And how you have the personal strength to take that pain and turn it into a positive and not get angry and not go into a shell and not be resentful. But to say, 'how do I take this pain, turn it into a positive energy to help others.' There is no truer sign of strength of character that is almost unbelievable. And that is Mark Barden. Let's give him a round of applause.

Randi Weingarten. Randi Weingarten is a New Yorker. You can hear her passion. You can hear her energy. She's now a big shot national labor leader, but she's still a New Yorker. They always come back home. And she's making great education policy for the nation and she's advocating for the nation but she never forgot where she came from.

After Parkland, the full chronology - Michael Mulgrew mentioned it - but the full chronology was, Randi called me and said, 'we have to do something.' I said, 'I know, I know.' She said, 'No, let me tell you what you have to do.' That is the teacher in Randi. And she gave me some details about the Red Flag Law so that we could have the best Red Flag Law in the United States. And we do. I then turned around and called Mike Mulgrew and said, 'let me tell you what we have to do.' I was just a conduit for that. And Michael Mulgrew who does a great job in this state representing teachers, but more he represents the interests of children. He represents the interests of children. He's a child advocate and he is extraordinary. Mike Mulgrew.

Again, Brian Kavanaugh and Jo Anne Simon who carried the bill, thank you very much. Pleasure to be with you. We have Judge Zayas here and Chief of the Brooklyn DA's office Nancy Hoppock. Thank you very much for being here. We have more state officials than I can shake a stick at, but we have our deputy secretary for criminal justice, the State Police are here, you're going to hear from them and we have our health Commissioner Doctor Zucker. And I just want to take a moment to say the health commissioner job is a tough job. And you know right now they say, well just make the right decision. Just do the right thing. These are crazy political times and there's a lot of controversy on everything. And the health commissioner had to make the decision on vaccines. Whether children should be vaccinated and the opposition was a ferocious and animated. And they were everywhere you go. Every event, you try to get into your house and you have to fight your way through people who are demonstrating in front of the house. But Doctor Zucker said children have to be vaccinated when they go to school, he was right, he stood up, he made a courageous decision. Thank you very much, Doctor Zucker.

On the issue of guns, we will look back one day in history and we will say, what were those people thinking? What were they thinking? How many times did you have to see the exact same episode and situation before basic sanity and common sense kicked in and overpowered this knee jerk, nonsensical politics, which is all it is; it's just knee jerk, nonsensical politics. They're afraid of the NRA. They're afraid of the NRA and that is stopping common sense legislation and it's killing people, literally. And we do nothing. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Tree of Life, the synagogue in Pittsburgh. Eleven people killed, seven people injured. What have we done? Nothing, and there is absolutely no reason for it and we know there's no reason.

Now Mark, when you put your head on the pillow a night and you say, you know, why would a loving God do this? Why would a loving God take my beautiful son? There is no answer to it, but maybe you find some peace in the fact that everything happens for a reason - and what happened in Sandy Hook was heard. And it changed the laws in Connecticut and it changed the law in State of New York within weeks of Sandy Hook happening. We passed the SAFE Act; it was politically difficult, it politically cost me personally a lot of negativity and it still does today, because there is passion in the gun issue.

Do not kid yourself. There is passion in those people who believe the Second Amendment trumps everything else, and their reading of the Second Amendment trumps everything else. But, we passed the SAFE Act, which is the exact same law they're talking about today. Ban assault weapons because you do not need them. Ban high capacity magazines. Do a full background check on everybody before they buy a gun. Do a mental health database where we now have 100,000 people on our mental health database who before the SAFE Act could've walked in and bought a gun. Think about that -- 100,000 people mentally ill who could've bought a gun. We passed the SAFE Act; that does not happen but for Sandy Hook and the SAFE Act has saved lives in this state, I have no doubt about it. I don't know how many, but I know it has saved lives, and I don't want to jinx us, knock on wood, but New York has not had one of these horrific mass shootings that are happening all across the country. And it's not that New York is a simple, uncomplicated place, but the SAFE Act has saved lives and that does not happen. And the SAFE Act says something else, Mark. The SAFE Act says you can pass this law and legitimate gun owners are not affected. SAFE Act has been in place for over five years. People can not like it ideologically. They can not like it politically. They can be angry at me because I trampled on their interpretation of the Second Amendment but nobody's ever come up to me and said I had a legal right to buy a gun and I wasn't allowed to. Nobody. Nobody has said to me, I'm a hunter and I love to hunt and now I can't hunt. Nobody has said I love to shoot at a target practice and now I can't shoot at a target practice. If you are not allowed a gun because you have a prior criminal conviction then yes, you can't buy a gun. If you're mentally ill you can't buy a gun. You can't buy an assault weapon which, by the way you are not hunting with an assault weapon anyway because it was illegal to hunt with an assault weapon before any of this.

We can do it, and New York is a laboratory test case of: don't tell me we can't do it because we did it in the State of New York. Yes, it's New York City. It's also that big part called upstate New York when you look at the map and that's all rural communities in upstate New York, and they're primarily Republican. They're primarily conservative and they're as vehement about the Second Amendment as anyone. But we passed it and it saved lives and it didn't infringe on anyone's rights and that's what you accomplished also, Mark.

Now, the next step is the Red Flag law and we do have the best Red Flag law in the United States and as Randi said, the numbers will vary, but the number of signs, the number of people who wind up using guns in acts of violence and the percentage of time that they demonstrated signs that alerted people is very, very high, which means something could have been done because a teacher knew that student had issues, or the teacher heard from another student, you know I'm afraid about this person, I heard this. Family members who are living with a child who they know is going through something and they know could be potentially dangerous and they know the person has guns, Sandy Hook, and they had no ability to do anything.

That's the Red Flag Law. It is a powerful tool which is in your hands, not the bureaucracy's hands. If you're a school teacher, they'll talk about yes, you should go to the principal and you should go to the supervisor and then the supervisor goes to a judge. Yes, that's the best way to make it work from an organizational point of view. A teacher themselves can walk out of the classroom and go to a judge. A family member themselves can leave the house and go talk to a judge and ask for an order of protection. It is a tool literally in the hands of the people on the frontline. And it is a tool that can save lives if, if you know how to use it, and that's what today is all about.

My last point is this: the many teachers who are with us today. My mother was a schoolteacher. My mom would say, once a schoolteacher always a schoolteacher. My mother is 88-years-old but do not tell her I said that. That was off the record. Post-fact off the record. And she now does mentoring. She is so committed to mentoring, so committed to young people - role models. She has five thousand kids in her mentoring program and everything is about mentoring. If she sees me - a clip of me on tv - and I did not mention mentoring, I can't go home for a week. But sometimes it does not fit right? You know, I'll say 'mom, I was talking about climate change. How do I get from climate change to mentoring?' They are all connected. It always comes back to mentoring, but God bless her. That is her passion.

But she will say how much harder to teach and raise a child today than it was, and that is very true. If you are in a classroom, you have students that don't speak the language, you have students who are not having meals at home, you have students who are coming out of difficult neighborhoods and difficult families, the job of teaching is much, much harder. The job of raising a child today is much, much harder. This is a much more dangerous environment than anything we have ever dealt with before. You have kids who can get addicted from opioids from the medicine chest in their own home by taking medications that were prescribed to their parents.

Vaping, we are going to be paying the price of vaping for decades to come. We addicted a whole new generation of kids to nicotine - at best to nicotine. After we spent all those decades losing people to cancer, losing people to tobacco. Having the lawsuits, I did it when I was Attorney General. Coming up with the prohibitions, you can't sell to minors, you can't sell flavors. And now they come up with vaping, which just bypasses everything. And everyone does it because it's cool and it's safe, and everybody does it because I'm young and I want to be with everyone. At a minimum they get addicted to nicotine, worst case scenario they drop dead because of the additives in the vaping compound.

Everywhere you turn. We have a subway system now where sexual predators who are repeat sexual predators are allowed back into the subway system. Emotionally disturbed people who are dangerous are allowed back into the subway system. There was the incident the other day where a man pushed a woman onto the tracks. I understand the right to access to public transportation. But have we lost our mind? What happened to balance and what happened to common sense? And why would you allow children to be riding a subway system with people you know who are known sexual predators who have repeated the act in subway over and over again? Why would you put them in the same condition with people who are extremely emotionally ill? It makes no sense.

So, the times are more dangerous and on this gun issue it is madness that we have not taken action on the federal side. The old Italians have an old expression - I can't say it in Italian - but it basically says we do what we can in life. Which means you can't change the world and we are not empowered to do everything. But our obligation is to do what we can. We have the Red Flag Law - do what we can. It is a tool in your hands that can save lives, and I believe it will.

Thank you for being here and God bless you.

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