New York City Defies Supreme Court, Creates Times Square "Gun-Free Zone"

Times Square by Terabass, CC 3.0

On June 22, 2022, the Supreme Court issued the long awaited and anticipated decision in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen case. The decision ended more than a decade of silence by the Court as lower courts eviserated Second Amendment right restored by the Heller and McDonald decision in 2008 and 2011, respectively.

Bruen decisively restored the right to carry portable arms outside the home, and clearly ordered lower courts to abide by the standards of the Heller and McDonald decisions, rather than use the “two step” process the lower courts had established to evade the restoration of Second Amendment protections.

The Governor Hochel of New York reacted within hours of the Supreme Court decision in Bruen, with an emergency session designed specifically to void the effect of Bruen.

On October 3, 2022, a federal district judge in New York found most of the “emergency” New York law to be unconstitutional, specifically a portion forbidding the legal carry of firearms in Times Square. From that decision:

Based on the historical analogues located thus far, it does not appear permissible for New York State to restrict concealed carry in the following place: “the area commonly known as Times Square, as such area is determined and identified by the city of New York; provided such area shall be clearly and conspicuously identified with signage” (as stated in subsection “2(t) of the CCIA).

On October 11, 2022, the City of New York defied the Supreme Court and the federal district court by imposing a City law banning the legal carry of guns by ordinary citizens in Times Square, with local law 0602-2022. The local law is to take effect immediately.

There will almost certainly be challenges to the law in short order. As this is written, those challenges have yet to be seen.

Opinion:

The New York and California responses to the restoration of Second Amendment protections for the right to keep and bear arms remind this correspondent of the Democratic response to the Brown v. Board of education decision in the segregated South of the 1960′s.

The response was strong from Democrat George Wallace:

Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom- loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . .. segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.

Here is part of the message put forth by New York Mayor Eric Adams, defying the Supreme Court:

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams today signed two bills aimed at tackling the scourge of gun violence in New York City and ensure that the city is safer for all, especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The first of the bills helps to track data from illegal gun trafficking within New York City, while the second bill designates the new boundaries of the Times Square sensitive location, which prohibits the concealed carrying of firearms within the sensitive zone, even by permit.

The mayor does not mention most mass murder public killings occur in “gun free zones”, as shown by research from the Crime Prevention Research Center.

Gun free zones are a tiny proportion of the land area of the United States. Yet, most mass public murders committed with guns occur in gun free zones.

It does not take much imagination to understand why: people who plan mass public murder want to run up the body count, so as to take advantage of the Media making them famous, for a bit of media immortality.

A “gun free” zone increases their chance of racking up the body count, because they are unlikely to meet armed resistance.

For ideological reasons, Progressives are never willing to admit that reality.

©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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