New York state took more than 600 guns off Rochester, NY, streets in the latest gun buyback, in a continuing effort to dent the flow of weapons from so-called “Iron Pipeline” states to the south and west.
New York Attorney General Letitia James today (Oct. 20) announced that 606 firearms were turned in at a gun buyback and have been added to 10,534 guns taken off the streets in more than 50 events since 2019.
“Every gun collected today was another life saved and potential tragedy avoided,” James said in a release.
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Today’s buyback event recovered 44 assault weapons, 177 handguns, and 247 long guns.
Most, but not all, will end up being dismantled, melted down or otherwise destroyed, but not before the state police carefully screen them.
Investigators will be trying to determine if any of the guns have been used in a crime and might be useful as evidence.
They will also try to determine if any guns have been reported stolen. If so, they will be returned to their rightful owners and go right back out on the street.
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Rep. Joe Morelle, who represents the area, said they state had reached a “signficant milestone” in its gun removal effort. “Every gun taken off the streets is one less opportunity for gun violence to devastate a family.”
But guns continue to pour into the state and onto the streets from the so-called “iron pipeline.” The term is a reference to the I-95 traffic corridor that runs from the tip of Maine all the way to Florida down the Eastern Seaboard.
About 19% of recovered crime guns were originally sold by licensed dealers within the state. But 81% flood in from across state lines. More than half of those come from six states along or near the I-95 corridor — Georgia (12%), Virginia (8%), Pennsylvania (8%), South Carolina (8%), North Carolina (8%) and Florida (8%).
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In New York City, the iron pipeline supplies an estimated 93% of crime guns, according to federal tracking reports. Straw purchasers, unlicensed, underground firearms dealers and people who build so-called “ghost guns” from parts obtained over the Internet are the principal sources.
The state, for years, had some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. But relentless legal challenges by gun rights groups have force the state to rewrite its laws, and the legal fight continues to this day.
In a landmark 2022 case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court conservative majority ruled 6-3, to strike down New York’s restrictive century-old public carry licensing law.
The Court held that the law’s requirement for applicants to prove “proper cause” to carry a gun in public violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. The law defined proper cuase as a “specialized, demonstrable need for self-protection distinct from the general public.”
The ruling was significant because the Court determined explicitly for the first time in the nation’s history that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a loaded handgun in public for self-defense.
Eight days after the ruling, Gov. Kathy Hochul called the state legislature into special session to rewrite New York’s law to bring it into compliance with the ruling. The Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) took effect in Sept. 2022.
That same year, the state also took steps to address the iron pipeline.
Hochul convened nearly 100 representatives from 11 neighboring and Northeast states (including Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts) to form a unified front against gun trafficking. Pennsylvania is the only pipeline state to participate.
The states began sharing intelligence and tracking data to execute targeted joint stings and highway interdictions.
New York also passed a strict gun liability law that allows the state and victims to sue in civil court gun manufacturers and distributors who knowingly or negligently fuel the criminal market. And, it began tighter regulation of instate gun dealers.
Within the first two months of operation, firearms removed from the streets surged 20%, and more than 8,000 illegal firearms were taken off the streets, from January-to-August this year — directly attributed to task force intelligence sharing.
But with the crackdown on the iron pipeline, criminals have expanded the manufacture of ghost guns from 3D printed components or parts obtained over the Internet.
The state countered by criminalizing the sale, distribution, or possession of digital 3D-printing blueprints used to manufacture firearms.
Hochul has invested more than $1 billion in gun violence prevention, according to the taskforce.
“These investments have contributed to a 67 percent reduction in shooting incidents involving injury over the past five years in the 28 communities participating in the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative,” it states.
This past month, the taskforce’s role was expanded to counteract recent Trump administration regulatory rollbacks regarding online sales and background check extensions.
Operational focus has shifted toward targeting rogue, out-of-state dealers and the growing threat of untraceable 3D-printed parts.
Preliminary data from the first half of this year showed a double-digit decline in violent crime, including a 19% reduction in violent offenses year-over-year.
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”