Rep. Goldman calls on NYC schools to provide more gun storage education for families

A congressmember from New York City is urging city schools to provide families with more education about safe gun storage at home.

In a letter shared exclusively with Gothamist on Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman called for Education Chancellor David Banks to ensure that safe storage information is shared with families – and if it’s not, he asked the Department of Education to make a formal plan to do so.

“There's a need for comprehensive and broad information, reform and regulation of our system in order to prevent the gun violence epidemic from expanding and to keep our children safe,” Goldman said in an interview.

Goldman’s petition comes just days after 14-year-old Josai Guy was accidentally shot and killed in Brooklyn by his 12-year-old cousin playing with a gun, according to police.

It’s exactly the kind of case Goldman said the Department of Education can help prevent. On a national level, he said about 350 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot themselves or others with a firearm every year, and 70% of those incidents happen at home.

A database from the organization Everytown for Gun Safety shows that in New York state, three kids have been injured as a result of accidental shootings at home so far this year. The data was not yet updated to include Guy’s death.

Two children were killed and four were injured by accidental shootings last year, the data shows.

“And that's the point of trying to be proactive and disseminating information about how to stop this kind of unintentional tragic shootings,” Goldman said.

A spokesperson for city schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced new plans to promote safe firearm storage across the country. One measure involved working directly with the U.S. Department of Education to encourage principals and administrators to talk with parents and families about how to lock guns up at home.

While the U.S. Department of Education gave school officials more resources to help tackle the issue, Goldman noted in his letter to Banks that administrators are not required to share it with families – meaning the information can easily be overlooked. New York City's Department of Education is the country's largest school system, and teaches roughly 1 million students in 1,800 schools.

Goldman, whose district spans Lower Manhattan and much of western Brooklyn, said the city's Department of Education seems ready to cooperate so far.

“We're in conversation with them to move this forward in a collaborative way,” he said. “The DOE is broadly very sensitive and aware of these issues and, I think, wants to be helpful.”

In his letter to Banks, Goldman asked that the Department of Education provide information about its partnerships on safe storage with community-based organizations, and asked about concrete steps the agency has taken to reach out to families.

As New York City prepares for the usual summer uptick in gun violence, Goldman said the issue is a major priority for his office that must be addressed from all sides.

“We have to do everything we possibly can at the federal, state and city level through legislation and other informational sources to tackle this tragic, tragic gun violence epidemic with 17,000 children shot every year in our country,” he said. “It is avoidable.”