Under the 2013 law, the reports prepared by doctors, psychologists, nurses and social workers are first sent to county officials. If they agree with the assessments, the officials then input the names into the state database. The information is retained for five years. If the authorities find a person in the database has a gun permit — necessary to purchase a handgun in New York — they are required to revoke the license and seize any guns. The people in the database are barred from obtaining a permit until their names are purged.

Among the people named in the database, fewer than 300 were found to have a permit. State officials said they did not know how many guns were subsequently seized from them.

Under the 2013 law, New York is one of the most restrictive states in the country in terms of mental health and firearms.

Under federal and most state laws, people with serious mental illnesses lose their gun rights only if they have been involuntarily committed to a mental health center, or have been legally designated as mentally ill or incompetent; both relatively rare occurrences. A small number of states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and New York, have stricter criteria for people with serious mental health issues to purchase and possess firearms.

New York’s law gives county officials the responsibility of reviewing the reports from mental health workers, ostensibly providing an added layer of oversight. But several said in interviews that they had little capacity to independently confirm whether the finding that a patient was dangerous was justified.

The way the law has played out, local officials said, frontline mental health workers feel compelled to routinely report mentally ill patients brought to an emergency room by the police or ambulances. County health officials are then supposed to vet each case before it is sent to Albany. But so many names are funneled to county health authorities through the system — about 500 per week statewide — that they have become, in effect, clerical workers, rubber-stamping the decisions, they said. From when the reporting requirement took effect on March 16, 2013 until Oct. 3, 41,427 reports have been made on people who have been flagged as potentially dangerous. Among these, 40,678 — all but a few hundred cases — were passed to Albany by county officials, according to the data obtained by The Times.