ALBANY COUNTY — Four months after a trio of Guilderland High School students asked the school board to pass a resolution requiring education of parents on the secure storage of firearms, the board did so.

The school district will “play a role in providing education to families about the safe storage of guns,” said Superintendent Marie Wiles at the board’s June 14 meeting. All eight of the board members present at the meeting voted in favor of the resolution.

At the same time, the Albany County Legislature has introduced a local law to educate people on the public health and safety risks associated with firearms.

School board President Seema Rivera said on June 14 she thought Guilderland was the first school district in the area to adopt such a resolution. “I’m really proud the students brought this to our attention. It’s a step in the right direction,” she said.

Board member Kelly Person said she had attended the June 11 March for Our Lives in Albany and that the three Guilderland students who had come before the school board on Feb. 14 — Conor Webb, Emily O’Connor, and Nora Whiteside — “stood up in front of hundreds of people there and kicked off the whole march with a really eloquent speech …

“They were joined by the lieutenant governor, the mayor of Albany, and other elected officials after them. They led the whole march,” she said. “It really was a moving event.”

The June 11 march in Albany was one of hundreds across the nation.

“We are scared …,” Webb had told the Guilderland School Board in February. “We are demanding more because we deserve more,” he said.

Webb is the president of the Guilderland chapter of March For Our Lives.

The student-led organization with chapters across the country was founded in 2018 in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A former student with disciplinary issues, Nikolas Cruz, 19, opened fire on students and staff on Feb. 14 of that year, killing 17 and wounding 17 more.

Following the massacre, a student-led March For Our Lives took place on March 24 in Washington, D.C. with coordinated demonstrations in more than 800 places across the country and around the world. In the United States, as many as 2 million people were estimated to have participated in the protests, which included 90 percent of all voting districts, crossing party lines, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, which helped the organizers.

The June 11 marches were inspired by recent mass shootings like the one on May 24 in Uvalde, Texas where an 18-year-old gunned down 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

This month, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation that requires a license for new semi-automatic rifle purchases and raises to 21 the minimum age to buy or possess a semi-automatic rifle.

“We’re very proud of our students for the leadership role they’ve played in the Capital District,” said board member Rebecca Butterfield at the June 14 meeting.

Butterfield, a pediatrician, had made a strong case in support of the resolution at the board’s May 24 meeting.

“Firearms are now the leading cause of death in America,” she said. “They surpass motor-vehicle accidents. They surpass cancer. This is a major public health problem …

“America has successfully reduced the number of motor-vehicle deaths in the last 20 years because of public-health measures. One public-health measure is educational intervention out to the community.”

Butterfield said the proposal on secure storage of firearms is “very similar to that.”

Secure Storage Notification Resolution

The resolution says that an estimated 4.6 million American children live in households with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm and that, in incidents of gun violence on school grounds, 75 percent of active shooters are current students or recent graduates, and up to 80 percent of shooters under the age of 18 obtained their guns from their own home, a relative’s home, or friends.

Further, it says that the United States Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center recommends appropriate storage of weapons because many school attackers used firearms acquired from their homes. 

Finally, the draft addresses unintentional firearm injuries of children and teens, saying that secure firearm storage practices are associated with up to an 85-percent reduction in those risks.

The resolution says, “Keeping students, teachers, and staff safe from the threat of gun violence should be the responsibility of all adult stakeholders at each of our school sites in the Guilderland Central School District” and calls for the student handbook to include information about parents’ legal obligations regarding the secure storage of firearms.

It also says parents should be informed of this through annual registration materials and that the board and superintendent “will continue to work with local law-enforcement agencies, health agencies, and nonprofits to collaborate and increase efforts to inform district parents of their obligations regarding secure storage of firearms in their homes.”

County bill

In a similar vein — educating the public — the Albany County Legislature is considering a bill that would require gun dealers to display warning signs noting the increased risk of violence associated with firearms and also providing contact information for the Albany County Mobile Crisis Team and the National Suicide Hotline.

Suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths, according to the Pew Research Center.

 In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, 54 percent of all gun-related deaths in the Uunited States were suicides (24,292), while 43 percent were murders (19,384), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The remaining gun deaths in 2020 were unintentional (535), involved law enforcement (611) or had undetermined circumstances (400).

Nearly eight in ten (79 percent) of the murders nationwide in 2020 — 19,384 out of 24,576 — involved a firearm. That marked the highest percentage since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online records.

Also in 2020, a little over half (53 percent) of all suicides — 24,292 out of 45,979 — involved a gun, a percentage that has generally remained stable in recent years.

The Albany County Commitment to Ensuring a Safe Society, or ACCESS, law would also require a written copy of the warning to be given when a gun is purchased and when anyone obtains a firearms license.

Failure to display the warning label may result in imprisonment of not more than 15 days, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, according to a release posted by the county.

“We have to do everything we can at all levels of government to stem the horrific tide of gun violence plaguing our nation,” said Guilderland legislator Dustin Reidy, sponsor of the ACCESS law, in the release. “The ACCESS law is a common-sense step toward the needed goal of gun violence prevention.”

“Being informed and aware of the inherent risks of possessing firearms is more important than ever,” said Albany County Legislature Chairman Andrew Joyce in the release. “Any opportunity to encourage thoughtfulness when purchasing firearms is critical to keeping people safe,” he said, citing “the flood of illegal guns reaching the youth in our communities.”

Albany County’s bill is modeled after similar legislation that was passed in May by the Westchester County Legislature and is being referred to the Law and Public Safety Committees for further review.