After Second Mass Shooting in Weeks, Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams Seek to Protect New Yorkers

By Yehudit Garmaise

The day after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 young children and two teachers by opening fire with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Gov. Kathy Hochul called for New York to legally to raise the required age, from 18 to 21, for those who wish to purchase such weapons.

Shooter Salvador Ramos, who was killed by police, used his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to shoot up an elementary school shortly after posting that he shot his grandmother.

Similarly, on May 15, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, live-streamed his murders of 10 Black people in a grocery store in Buffalo.

“Just this morning, as we’re all reeling with the pain, I’m asking myself as governor: Am I supposed to just leave all the flags at half-mast?” asked Hochul.  “They’re still at half-mast from Buffalo.

“I don’t want 18-year-olds to have guns, at least not in the state of New York.

Mayor Eric Adams also lamented the violent culture in which children now live.

To demonstrate, Adams played for reporters a social media video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of teens.

In the video, teens wave guns and say, "I want a body." 

"This is what is being fed to our children," said the mayor, who suggested that parents check the backpacks of their children for weapons after several were found in the possession of NYC schoolchildren. "Children are put in harm's way because of the actions of adults, and we are betraying them.

In the hopes that adults will recreate the country so as to provide safety for children, Mayor Adams said he hopes that 10 senators "get the courage" to initiate changes in gun laws and that the Supreme Court re-evaluates the open-carry law that they may pass.