New York City is moving to require gun stores to display graphic warnings about the dangers of keeping guns in the home.
Under a bill introduced by City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, a Democrat, the city’s 14 gun stores would have to put up signs advising prospective customers that gun ownership heightens their risk of homicide, suicide, and accidental shootings.
The bill mandates that the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene design the signs to feature provocative imagery, like a child reaching into an opened drawer containing a firearm. Gun stores would also have to display the telephone numbers for two hotlines that help people with feelings of distress and depression.
Any violation of the requirements could result in a $5,000 fine.
Bottcher filed the bill in September. Eighteen other city councilmembers have signed on to co-sponsor the measure as of November 25.
Carl Wilson, Bottcher’s chief of staff, said the bill was inspired by foreign cigarette packaging, which carries images including rotting teeth and gums, cancer-ridden lungs, and premature babies to dissuade people from smoking.
“We felt that there is no other consumer product without a visual warning that is as dangerous as guns, so this seemed like an appropriate fit,” Wilson said.
The Trace reached out to every New York City gun store and they either did not return calls and emails or declined to comment. The state’s National Rifle Association-affiliate, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, also did not respond.
Other types of businesses have long been required to display warning signs about the products they sell. Liquor stores, for example, have to advise customers about the dangers of drinking while pregnant. Wilson said that if Bottcher’s bill passes, New York would become the first municipality in the country to extend that requirement — visually — to gun stores.
“This bill is definitely a priority of the council members,” he said. “The hope is that having a municipality as large as New York with this type of policy position, it would be replicated in other municipalities, in the region, and perhaps the country.”
New York City has seen shootings steadily decline since the pandemic, when many American cities endured a surge in gun violence. According to the New York Police Department, as of November 24, the city had recorded 833 shootings this year, down more than 6 percent over the same period in 2023, when there were 889 shootings.
However, the number of New Yorkers seeking to arm themselves has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling declared a part of the city’s gun licensing regime unconstitutional. In 2023, the NYPD received 13,369 applications from people seeking a license to own a gun at home. That is nearly triple the 4,665 applications filed in 2021.
“New York had very, very, very strong gun laws for about 100 years, and the Bruen decision and the Supreme Court eviscerated those laws,” said Jay Walker, president of New York-based organization Gays Against Guns, a gun violence prevention group. “The goal of the bill is really to make people pause and think before purchasing a gun.”
Everytown for Gun Safety first approached Bottcher with the idea of requiring signs at gun stores, inspired by research on the effectiveness of imagery alongside text in health communications. The idea was buoyed by a U.S. appeals court ruling in March that upheld a federal rule to require graphic warning labels on cigarettes by late 2025 or early 2026.
“We know that our gun safety laws are only as strong as their implementation and education, and that’s why measures like this are so critical,” Mary Kenah, Everytown’s policy counsel, said in a statement.
(Through its nonpolitical arm, Everytown provides grants to The Trace. You can find our donor transparency policy here, and our editorial independence policy here.)
Jackie Rowe-Adams, co-founder and CEO of the New York City advocacy group Harlem Mothers SAVE (Stop Another Violent End), said she was one of the first people Bottcher called after he introduced the measure. “As a mother who lost two kids to gun violence, I’m glad this bill is out there,” she said. “I hope it passes. It’s taking the right step toward saving lives.”
Cameron Kasky, co-founder of March for Our Lives, the gun reform group founded after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said he hopes the bill increases awareness about the need for people to store their firearms securely.
“I believe that deadly things ought to have a warning attached,” Kasky said in an email. “I think if this bill inspires similar ones in other cities, awareness will be spread and, ideally, more people will lock up their deadly weapons.”
