S4970B Restrictive Commercial Practices

S4970A [link] :   Requires the creation and imposition of restrictive commercial practices and stringent record keeping and reporting to prevent gun and ammunition sales to individuals with a criminal record.

This new law will be the reason many small gun businesses fold. Some due to the cost burden, some due to the reporting requirements that include giving the state copies of transaction records.

There are several changes for inter-agency reporting for siezing or recovering guns. These should not impact the law abiding public very much.

The primary impact on the public will be the further reduction in infrastructure available to legal firearm/gun owners implemented as restrictive changes in aritcle 39-BB.  The new article has 9 sections 875-a to 875-i.

875-a Definitions. a set of 7 redundant definitions. There is one on straw purchases that is GOOD - it makes clear that gifts are not straw purchases.  "Straw purchase" means the purchase, or attempt to purchase, by a person of a firearm, rifle, shotgun or ammunition for, on behalf of, or for the use of another person known or unknown. The term shall not include a bona fide gift to a person who is not prohibited from possessing or receiving such a firearm. For purposes of this subdivision, a gift to a person shall not be a bona fide gift if the person has offered or given the purchaser a service or thing of value to acquire the 31 firearm for the person.

875-b Security. 

1. Requires a security plan, with firearms/rifles/shotguns locked up in a fireproof safe or area (not a big deal), ammo out of reach of customers (big deal for big stores - basically has to be behind the counter).

2. Security alarm system. Must meet a currently unspecified design requirement. installed and maintained by a licensed 3rd party. capable of being monitored by a central station, and the unenforceable "The security alarm system shall be capable of being monitored by a central station, and shall provide, at a minimum, complete protection and monitoring for all accessible openings, and partial motion and sound detection at certain other areas of the premises.  The dealer location shall additionally be equipped with a video recording device at each point of sale and each entrance and exit to the premises, which shall be recorded from both the indoor and outdoor vantage point and shall maintain such recordings for a period of not less than two years." At KEI, our security system records about 1 TB of video/motion triggered still images every week, or 4 TB a month and 48 TB a year. A 2 year cloud based storage of 96 TB will run about $2300/month at $0.023/GB according to google drive pricing [link], or $27,600 per year, depending on the not yet published requirements for security systems. This requirement will force many small companies out of business due to the potential cost of implementation. This is just for storage and does not include the up front cost to implement the surveillance to be dictated in the yet to be published design requirements, which are expected to run $5k - $10k in hardware and installation costs with additional costs separate from storage for real time monitoring and reporting.

875-c Restricted access.  

Exclude access to portions of the store where guns/ammo are stocked/sold for under 18. A big deal for larger stores.

875-d Restrict sale locations.

Nonsense. repeats existing law. you can only sell at gun shows and at the address listed on the federal FFL.

875-e training.

Conduct training per new yet to be provided material provided by superindendent annually and within 30 days of hire and 90 days of implementation of this law (March 3 2023). minimum age to be an employee 21.

875-f Maintenance of records.

Submit records of sales to the state every April and October. Perform a monthly inventory of all firearms/rifles/shotguns. On demand (no search warrant) dispositioninfo including purchaser ID to goberment law enforcement agencies 'at any time'.  4473 records kept in a secure container design to prevent loss by fire/theft/flood (file cabinet not good enough). 

875-g Internal compliance

Internal procedures to ensure compliance. report annually to superintendent of compliance, be inspected by state police once every 3 years.

875-h additional 'rules'

superindendent to create additional rules not approved by NY legislature as needed.

violation is a class A misdemeanor.

This law goes into effect 180 days after signature, so 3 December 2022.