It won’t come as a revelation to NRA members that New York, and specifically New York City, is home to some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country. The state fought NRA and NRA’s New York state affiliate, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, at the U.S. Supreme Court twice in the last decade to try to preserve unconstitutional firearm restrictions. When NRA and NYSRPA prevailed in NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022), which confirmed that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms outside the home for self-defense by invalidating New York’s century-old regime of discretionarily issuing carry licenses, the state turned around and enacted a raft of new carry restrictions, including onerous gun-free zones in so-called “sensitive locations.” The validity of these dubious measures is now the subject of additional litigation.
New York politicians’ obsession with gun control might give the unsophisticated an impression that Empire State officials are genuinely concerned about the misuse of firearms or preventing crime. Their behavior suggests otherwise.
Consider a pair of recent stories from New York City.
On Nov. 15, 2024, the New York Post ran an article with the eye-popping headline, “Migrant with loaded AR-15, suspected Mexican cartel member, freed from jail after alleged assault on NYPD cops.” According to the item, a 20-year-old migrant “was hit with assault, gun possession, resisting arrest and trespassing charges after being nabbed urinating in a subway tunnel on Nov. 5—while lugging the assault weapon in his backpack.” The report indicated that two police officers were injured trying to take the individual into custody.
A piece from the New York Daily News stated that the firearm was “loaded with 25 live rounds and had a defaced serial number” and that the young suspect had two prior arrests.
A dangerous criminal taken off the street? Not quite.
According to the Post, the accused was released after posting $25,000 bail.
The suspect is innocent until proven guilty. However, it is instructive to consider how the reported facts line up with federal, state and local gun-control laws.
Possession of a firearm in New York City requires a license (handguns) or a permit (rifles and shotguns).
Possessing so-called “assault weapons,” such as the AR-15, is prohibited by state law. Possessing so-called “large capacity ammunition feeding devices,” including a magazine with a capacity greater than 10 rounds, is prohibited by state law. Possessing a “firearm, rifle or shotgun which has been defaced for the purpose of concealment or prevention of the detection of a crime” is prohibited by state law. These state crimes are punishable as felonies.
State law prohibits firearm possession in a wide array of so-called “sensitive locations.” This includes, “any place … used for public transportation or public transit” or “any facility used for or in connection with service in the transportation of passengers,” including “subway and rail stations.” Furthermore, “Criminal possession of a firearm, rifle or shotgun in a sensitive location is a class E felony.”
The New York Post article pointed out that “It was not immediately clear” if the migrant suspect is in the U.S. lawfully. Federal law prohibits firearm possession by those unlawfully in the U.S. Such a violation is punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment.
Federal law also makes it illegal to “possess or receive any firearm which has had the importer’s or manufacturer’s serial number removed, obliterated, or altered.” A violation of this provision is punishable by up to five years of imprisonment.
Given the abundance of gun laws on the books, and the suspect’s other alleged conduct, a jurisdiction interested in public safety might have found a way to keep this gentleman detained.
A second tale out of the Big Apple will have reasonable people wondering just what it takes to incapacitate a dangerous individual. On Nov. 18, 2024, a deranged man allegedly went on a cross-Manhattan stabbing spree that left three New Yorkers dead. The suspect’s lengthy criminal record and history of mental illness has led many to question how the city deals with crime. Even New York City Mayor Eric Adams noted, “He was sentenced a few months ago, and there’s a real question that we need to look at on why he was out on the streets, and he has some severe mental health issues that should have been examined.”
Discussing the suspect, NBC News reported:
[The suspect] was released from a New York City jail on Oct. 17 for time served on burglary and assault charges, records showed. Records showed that he is alleged to have committed grand larceny by taking property from a Manhattan store on the day he was released.
And earlier this year, [the suspect] was charged with multiple crimes in neighboring New Jersey, according to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
The piece went on to note, “In total, [the suspect] has been arrested eight times in New York City in the past year, court records showed. He also has been arrested in Ohio and Florida.”
A New York Post editorial titled, “New York let a crazy career criminal roam the streets and now three people are dead,” added, “In May, [the suspect] spent time in the Bellevue psych ward, where he assaulted a correction officer.”
While officials in anti-gun jurisdictions continue to display a conspicuous indifference to crime, there are signs that voters aren’t taking the problem lying down.
In the 2024 presidential election, voters were presented with contrasting visions for the future of gun ownership in America. President Donald Trump has persistently expressed his support for a robust Second Amendment right, oftentimes as a speaker at the NRA Institute for Legislative Action’s Leadership Forum. Moreover, he has followed through on his words, rejecting federal gun-control efforts and appointing strong pro-Second Amendment judges to the federal judiciary. On the other hand, Kamala Harris had a record of opposing the individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. As San Francisco district attorney, Harris supported a total ban on handguns. While running for president in the 2020 election, Harris supported banning and confiscating commonly owned semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15.
Voters endorsed Trump’s vision on gun rights, returning him to the White House with a resounding victory. In deep-blue states that Trump didn’t carry, like New York and California, the vote margin still shifted markedly toward the president from 2020.
At the same time, voters registered their disgust with soft-on-crime politicians in anti-gun jurisdictions, with California being the epicenter.
For example, in Oakland, Calif., crime has surged since 2020. The Mercury News reported, “Oakland’s overall 2023 crime rate was higher than at any time in the past two decades, … up 65% since 2020,” the 2023 violent crime rate was up 33% since 2020 and the 2023 property crime rate increased by 74% since 2020. Unhappy residents reacted with separate successful recall petitions to get rid of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, whose district included Oakland.
Proponents of the recall claimed that Thao had created a “public-safety crisis” by “systematically dismantling the Oakland Police Department, leading to the city’s reputation as one of the most dangerous in America.” The same sentiment likely fueled the recall of Price, just two years into her term. Shortly after taking office in 2023, Price had implemented new sentencing and case disposition guidelines for prosecutors, pursuant to which the presumptive sentencing offer would be probation for all cases that were probation-eligible; otherwise, the sentencing offer would be the lower term. Almost all felonies, including those that were serious or violent, would be probation-eligible.
The election results showed overwhelming support for the recalls, with over 60% of the electorate sending the radical duo the message, “You’re fired!”
Across the bay in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed was voted out of office, defeated by a challenger with no previous political experience but who pledged to “bring accountability back to public safety.” During Breed’s six years in office, San Francisco became a byword for urban decay, with homeless encampments, abandoned storefronts, open-air drug use, rampant retail theft and other crimes.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón lost his bid for reelection after withstanding two previous attempts to recall him.
Gascón had co-authored California’s controversial Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that, among other things, reclassified certain property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, triggering endemic shoplifting and organized theft. NBC News reported that as L.A. County district attorney, Gascón “barred prosecutors in his office from seeking the death penalty and various sentencing enhancements, stopped the prosecution of juveniles as adults and ended cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.”
In a broader strike against California’s current lawlessness, citizens across the state—appalled by the explosion in property and drug crimes—overwhelmingly supported the passage of Proposition 36. This ballot measure partially reverses Proposition 47’s changes by increasing penalties for criminals who repeatedly engage in theft and adds new laws to address “smash-and-grab” thefts that result in significant losses and damage or that are committed by organized theft gangs. It adds fentanyl to the existing laws prohibiting the possession of hard drugs while armed with a loaded firearm and allows judges to sentence drug dealers to state prison instead of county jail in some cases.
Voters appear to understand that there is plenty of room for public officials to engage in more-vigorous enforcement of existing laws against criminals before burdening decent, law-abiding citizens with new restrictions on their right to keep and bear arms. For the sake of public order, individual liberty and their own electoral prospects, anti-gun public officials should take notice.
