New York Gun Storage and Ammo Laws: What Changed

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, who has tracked New York gun law since the SAFE Act and read both chapters line by line against the Penal Law sections they rewrite

Quick take: Governor Kathy Hochul signed two gun bills on October 21, 2026. Starting January 19, 2027, every New York gun owner has to lock up a gun that is out of their immediate control, not just owners who live with kids or prohibited people. The second law, already in force, tells State Police to deny ammo checks for anyone barred from owning a rifle or shotgun.

• What happened: Hochul signed S7236 as Chapter 316 (ammunition) and A1962-B as Chapter 315, “Francesco’s law” (safe storage), on October 21, 2026.
• Why it matters: New York’s storage rule stops depending on who lives in your house, and the penalty for a plain storage lapse drops to a violation.
• What’s next: Chapter 316 took effect on signing, while the storage offenses switch on January 19, 2027.
• Who to watch: The State Police, who run the ammo checks, and local prosecutors, who will decide what “immediate possession or control” means in a bedroom.

A gun-rights write-up that went around after the signing had the two bill numbers swapped. So we skipped the summaries and read the chaptered text on the Legislature’s own pages, plus the Penal Law as it will read in January. The storage law is the bigger deal by a mile, and it is not the law most people think it is.

Table of Contents

What Chapter 316 Does to the New York Ammo Check

New York has run a point-of-sale background check on ammunition through the State Police since September 2023, and the details live in Penal Law 400.03. S7236, sponsored by Sen. Michael Gianaris, adds one subdivision to that section. The bill has two sections, and the second one is the effective date.

The new subdivision 9 says any ammunition background check “shall be denied if it is determined that the ammunition purchaser is prohibited from possessing a shotgun or rifle” under the Penal Law, the federal prohibited-person list in 18 U.S.C. 922(g), or a temporary or final extreme risk protection order. The act says it “shall take effect immediately,” so it has been live since October 21.

Why bother? Gianaris’s sponsor memo says that under the old wording, “the only ammunition possession prohibitors are those that exist under federal law, 18 U.S.C. 922(g).” The memo names two New York-only prohibitors the check could miss: a red flag order and a conviction for a “serious offense” under Penal Law 265.00(17).

To be fair to the old system, Executive Law 228 already told the State Police to check whether a buyer is barred by state or federal law from buying a firearm or ammunition. Chapter 316 takes that and puts an explicit denial rule into the ammo statute itself. It adds no new fee, no new form and no change to how a counter clerk runs the check.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz put the logic in one line in the governor’s release: “If a person fails a background check to buy or possess a shotgun or rifle, they should also be unable to purchase ammunition.” If you can buy a rifle in New York today, nothing about your next box of 9mm changes. The full rundown of the state’s purchase rules is in our New York gun laws guide.

Francesco’s Law Rewrites Penal Law 265.45

This is the one that touches ordinary owners. Today, Penal Law 265.45 only reaches home storage if you live with someone under 18, someone under a red flag order or certain federal prohibitions, or someone barred by a felony or serious-offense conviction. If nobody like that lives with you, subdivision 1 does not reach you.

Chapter 315 deletes that whole “resides with” clause. From January 19, 2027, the rule reads that no person who owns or is custodian of a rifle, shotgun or firearm shall leave it out of their immediate possession or control without first locking it in an appropriate safe storage depository or disabling it with a gun locking device. Every owner. Every home.

The governor’s release frames it the same way: the law “closes a gap in state law that allowed gun owners to leave firearms unsecured in homes without children or prohibited individuals.” Sen. Erik Bottcher’s line in the release is shorter: “A locked gun can mean the difference between a life lost and a life saved.”

And here’s the part almost nobody is reporting. The penalty for the basic storage offense goes down, not up. The current first-degree offense is a class A misdemeanor, and the new text ends with “Failure to safely store rifles, shotguns, and firearms is a violation.” Under Penal Law 70.15 and 80.05, a violation carries up to 15 days in jail and a fine of up to $250.

The New Class A Misdemeanor in Section 265.51

The tougher charge moves to a brand-new section, 265.51, titled failure to safely store rifles, shotguns, and firearms when accessible by a minor or prohibited person. It takes two things together: you stored a gun in violation of 265.45 somewhere you knew or had reason to know a minor or prohibited person was likely to get at it, and that person actually got access.

That one is a class A misdemeanor, which in New York means up to 364 days and a fine of up to $1,000. “Minor” means anyone under 18, and “prohibited person” covers anyone barred from possessing a gun under state or federal law. Red flag orders count, which is where our red flag laws by state tracker comes in.

The bill also repeals Penal Law 265.46, the old second-degree offense for leaving a gun where a child under 16 was likely to get it. That one was a violation with a fine capped at $250. Its ground is now covered by the two sections above.

The Exceptions and the Fine Print

Both storage sections carry the same two defenses. It is not a violation if the gun was obtained through unlawful entry by any person, or used in a lawful act of self-defense or defense of another. Section 265.51 keeps the existing carve-outs for a minor using a gun under the 265.20 supervision rules or hunting with a license under the Environmental Conservation Law.

The vehicle rule in subdivision 2 does not change. Guns left in a car still have to be unloaded and locked in a safe storage depository out of sight, and a glove box still does not count. The definition of a safe storage depository does not change either: a locked safe or container that is fire, impact and tamper resistant.

Here’s what the text does not say. Nothing in the new 265.45 requires a gun at home to be unloaded, and the unloading language appears only in the vehicle subdivision. A cable or trigger lock satisfies the rule as well as a safe does, since a gun locking device is the second option. And the section does not define “immediate possession or control,” so a pistol on the nightstand while you sleep is a question the courts will answer, not the statute.

Two smaller pieces round it out. Anyone found in violation of 265.45 or 265.51 gets safe storage materials from the state Office of Gun Violence Prevention, under a new Penal Law 400.00(19-a). That office also has to start collecting data on minors injured or killed by unsecured guns for its annual report.

Why the Storage Law Is the Bigger Story

The ammo change is mostly cleanup. The storage change turns a rule about specific households into a rule about every gun in the state, and pairs it with a lower penalty for the plain lapse and a harder one when a kid or a prohibited person gets the gun.

The law is named for Francesco, a 17-year-old who died by suicide on October 21, 2021, with an unsecured firearm, according to the sponsor memo from Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson. The governor signed it at the New Yorkers Against Gun Violence dinner on the fifth anniversary of his death. The roll calls: 88 to 47 in the Assembly and 41 to 20 in the Senate. The ammo bill went 48 to 11 in the Senate and 89 to 45 in the Assembly. The A1962-B record has the full bill history.

If you already keep everything in a safe, nothing changes for you on January 19. If you keep a long gun behind the bedroom door in an empty-nest house, you have about three months to buy a lock or a cabinet. Our gun safe storage laws breakdown covers what counts as a compliant safe, and the governor’s signing release lists both bills.

Lock it or carry it. That is New York’s whole rule now.

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