2026 Session Roundup: Penalty Enhancements, Bail Reform, and Youth Firearms Proposals

What These Bills Would Do

The 2025-2026 session includes a substantial block of bills aimed at toughening penalties for firearms offenses, expanding bail eligibility for weapons crimes, and restricting the ability of adolescent offenders who possess firearms to be removed to Family Court. These bills reflect a bipartisan push to respond to gun violence through the criminal justice system.

Penalty enhancements:

• A03659 / S00990 would reclassify criminal possession of a firearm under Penal Law 265.01-b from a class E felony to a class D felony, increasing potential prison time. Both bills were referred to their respective Codes Committees on January 7, 2026.^[1]
• A00818 / S06398. Creates a new class A-I felony for "operating as a major firearms trafficker," the most serious category of felony in New York
• A03657 / S01037. Addresses unlawful discharge of a loaded firearm toward police officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel
• A04463 / S01304. Creates the crime of "firing into a crowded space" as a class B violent felony

Bail and pretrial detention:

• A00632. Makes firearms possession, display, or discharge offenses qualifying for bail^[2]
• A01013 would add Article 265 crimes involving the use of a machine-gun, firearm silencer, firearm, rifle, shotgun, disguised gun, ghost gun or assault weapon to bail-eligible offenses.
• A07460 / S07419. Permits courts to remand defendants to custody for felony firearms and weapons possession

Youth and adolescent offenders:

• A01075 / S02361 would exempt adolescent offenders who illegally possessed a loaded firearm from removal to Family Court.
• A00346. Establishes the offense of unlawful possession of firearms by persons under 21^[3]
• A03401 would expand criminal solicitation in the third degree to cover a person over eighteen who intentionally provides a loaded firearm to a person under eighteen, intending that the recipient commit an Article 265 crime, in order to protect the actor from criminal prosecution.

Current Status

The last recorded action on A03657 was that it was held for consideration in Codes on April 21, 2026. The last recorded action on each of the other bills listed above was referral to its chamber's Codes Committee on January 7, 2026. The sheer number of proposals (over a dozen) reflects the intensity of the debate, but the lack of movement suggests legislative leadership has not prioritized any individual bill for floor action.

What to Watch

Many of these proposals would partially roll back aspects of New York's 2019 bail law (Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2019, Part JJJ), which requires a court to release a principal on recognizance or under non-monetary conditions unless the principal is charged with a qualifying offense. The firearms exception has been a flashpoint: advocates argue that judges need discretion to hold defendants charged with illegal gun possession, while reform advocates warn that expanded bail eligibility disproportionately affects communities of color. Watch for omnibus criminal justice packages that bundle several of these provisions, as the Legislature has historically used package deals to move politically difficult firearms and criminal justice measures.