Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared gun violence in New York a disaster emergency during a news conference on Tuesday.

Cuomo says an executive order issued Tuesday will provide necessary resources to combat the issue across New York.

“When you look at the recent numbers, more people are dying of gun violence than of COVID,” he says.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, two shootings happened within blocks of each other in Yonkers, killing one man and leaving two others injured.

Cuomo plans to invest a total of $138.7 million using the same tactic for tackling COVID-19 to treat gun violence.

“We mapped it—and we found out where it was, and we found the clusters, and then we attacked the clusters. You can do the same thing with gun violence,” he says.

The governor says New York’s current spike in gun violence began last summer, after COVID-19 kept many young people out of school.

“Gun violence discriminates,” said Cuomo.

In these high-crime hotspots, the plan is to give kids alternatives to being out in the streets.

“You need sports programs and arts programs and training programs, and you need places that are open,” Cuomo says.

The focus of Cuomo’s plan is to create 21,000 jobs for at-risk youth. It also focuses on being more aggressive with police reform.

“You are not going to get the community to trust the police again until they see real change,’ he says.

Other parts of Cuomo’s plan include stopping illegal guns from coming in and out of the state and creating a new law that holds gun manufacturers responsible.

As well, the plan aims to close the loophole where people with active warrants could still buy guns in the state.