It’s now Dodge City, New York.
Thanks to the United States Supreme Court, the City’s becoming like the kind of Old West town you see depicted in the films Tombstone [1993], Wyatt Earp [1994], or Unforgiven [1992]. We now need signs to remind gun owners to leave their arms at home or drop them off at the local precinct for safekeeping.
Previously, the laws of New York State declared people could only get a license to carry a concealed “pistol or revolver” outside their homes if they could prove that “proper cause exists” for them to do so. And what constituted proper cause? “A special need for self-protection” — that’s self defense — “distinguishable from that of the general community.”
But on June 22nd, in the matter of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled that “the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.” So, restrictions on gun owners harboring weapons on themselves whenever they wanted to visit a park, grocery store, or subway station were suddenly lifted. As Governor Kathy Hochul observed in a press conference afterwards, “This decision isn’t just reckless, it’s reprehensible.”
So she called the State Legislature back into session. Rebuking the Supreme Court, they crafted a new law and dubbed it the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.” Among the new provisions, gun owners are now prohibited from bringing their wares into so-called “sensitive places.” And there are many — the obvious, like places of worship, the courts, libraries, and trains — but also the most public, like parks, playgrounds, sidewalks, and Times Square. Yes, even Times Square.
Mayor Eric Adams, shocked the Supreme Court could ever bring things to such an end, remarked, “I never thought from watching cowboy movies as a child — ‘Leave your gun at the door’ — that it would become a reality in the State of New York.” He was even more flabbergasted to have to announce that Times Square is now a “sensitive place.”
“Think about that — we have to actually say that in our city,” Adams sighed to reporters. “We have to say that it’s a gun-free zone.”
Sure do. And the Supreme Court will probably vote it down one day too.
Photo by Rick Stachura. 7th Avenue and West 40th Street. August 31, 2022.