Senate bill · S638 (2025-26)
Relates to gun buyback programs
New York State Senate
Same as A11686, the matching bill in the Assembly.
Sponsor: Patrick M. Gallivan (State Senator, District 60, Republican/Conservative)
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From NY Open Legislation, the NY Senate and Assembly, and official rosters. This record was last updated Oct 29, 2026. About our data
Summary
Relates to gun buy back programs; requires entities operating such programs to check the serial number of all firearms obtained against the NYSPIN records and to obtain the express permission of the lawful owner of any firearm found to be stolen before the destruction thereof.
Summary from NY Open Legislation. How we handle summaries
Amends the Penal Law.
Purpose, from the sponsor's memo
This legislation would require that all firearms obtained through a private or governmental "gun buyback program" be checked against the New York Statewide Police Information Network (NYSPIN) to ensure the firearms have not been reported as stolen.
Filed with the bill. Read it on nysenate.gov (opens in a new tab)
Where it stands
Assigned to a committee for review.
- Introduced
- In committee
- Up for a vote
- Passed one chamber
- Passed
- Enacted
Committee
Codes · New York State Assembly
Also referred to Codes · New York State Senate.
Your position on this bill
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The sponsor's argument
Why Patrick M. Gallivan says this is needed
Currently, there is no requirement that private or governmental entities running "gun buyback programs" need to check the recovered weapons prior to disposing of them. The purpose of these gun buyback programs is to try to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals. However, we do not want these programs to encourage the theft of lawfully owned firearms. In order to ensure that the guns turned in are either unaccounted for or returned by their lawful owner, this legis- lation would require that the serial number of the guns be cross-refer- enced with NYSPIN, which already keeps a record of firearms reported as stolen.
This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.
Full history
- Sep 2, 2026
Referred to committee
REFERRED TO CODES
NY Assembly
- Jan 7, 2026
Referred to committee
REFERRED TO CODES
NY Senate
- Jan 8, 2025
Referred to committee
REFERRED TO CODES
NY Senate
Read the record
- Read on NY Senate (opens in a new tab) The official record on nysenate.gov.