Using city purchasing power, zoning, and legal authority to combat gun violence and weaken the influence of firearms manufacturers.
Mamdani vs. The Gun Lobby: A Municipal Strategy for Disarmament
Frustrated by federal and state gridlock on gun control, Zhoran Mamdani outlines an aggressive municipal strategy to combat gun violence and directly challenge the economic power of the firearms industry. This strategy leverages every tool available to a city: its massive purchasing power, its zoning authority, its public health mandate, and its legal standing. The goal is to make New York a hostile environment for the gun lobby while directly reducing the number of firearms and the damage they cause in communities.
Key policies include: a city ordinance requiring any business that sells firearms in NYC to carry prohibitive liability insurance; a ban on city contracts with any company that manufactures or sells firearms or ammunition; using zoning to prohibit gun stores within a certain distance of schools, parks, and community centers; creating a public nuisance cause of action allowing the city to sue gun manufacturers for the public health costs of gun violence; and a mandatory safe storage law enforced by public health inspectors, not police. Mamdani would also establish a city-funded gun buyback program with premium incentives, and invest in community-led violence prevention as the primary strategy to reduce demand for guns.
We cannot wait for Congress to act while our children are dying, Mamdani states. The city has immense power as a market actor and a regulator. We will use that power to strangle the economic viability of the gun industry in NYC and to get guns off our streets. This is a comprehensive attack on both the supply and the demand side of gun violence. It says that the business of selling instruments of death is incompatible with the business of building a safe, healthy city.
