NYC Mayor claims concealed carry will "stretch" police resources

AP Photo/John Minchillo

How so? It’s not like New York City is suddenly going to be overrun by concealed carry holders committing violent crimes. Not only are those who possess a carry permit in the United States generally more law-abiding than the general public, the city and state of New York are doing everything possible to artificially depress the number of individuals with a carry permit, so there aren’t going to be a lot of concealed carry holders on the streets of the five boroughs anyway… at least for the time being.

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The mayor told MSNBC on Thursday that policing the many new “gun-free zones” and investigating those applying for a concealed carry license is “going to really stretch out our law enforcement capabilities,” but if the NYPD’s resources are indeed stretched thin, it’s going to be the result of those new and unreasonable requirements imposed by anti-gun lawmakers like Eric Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“It is really about using the good, old-fashioned methods of doing investigation,” Adams said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday morning.

“When I became a police officer, people knocked on my neighbor’s doors and interviewed them and asked what type of person am I.”

Police officers will employ those “good old-fashioned” methods of investigation like knocking on neighbors’ doors as part of the background check requirements on potential gun permit holders included in New York’s new gun safety law.

State officials added extra requirements for individuals seeking concealed carry weapons permits that take effect today, Sept. 1, in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision that overturned a 1913 state law mandating individuals to show “proper cause” for packing heat.

“And I think those are the same skills that’s going to be used to look at not only social media but also knocking our neighbors’ doors, speaking to people, finding out who this individual is that we are about to allow to carry a firearm in our city,” said Adams, a former police captain.

Background checks will now require applicants to sit down for an in-person interview, submit four character references, a list of former and current social media accounts spanning the prior three years and disclose the names of their spouse or any other adults living in their home.

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These new requirements will undoubtably impose a burden on law enforcement, though the effects are going to be felt more severely in smaller cities and sheriff’s departments than in the NYPD.

In Rochester, Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter said it currently takes two to four hours to perform a pistol permit background check on a “clean” candidate. He estimate the new law will add another one to three hours for each permit. The county has about 600 pending pistol permits.

“It’s going to slow everything down just a bit more,” he said.

In the Mohawk Valley, Fulton County Sheriff Richard C. Giardino had questions on how the digital sleuthing would proceed.

“It says three years’ worth of your social media. We’re not going to print out three years of social media posts by everybody. If you look at my Facebook, I send out six or 10 things a day,” said the sheriff, a former district attorney and judge.

The implementation of these new requirements is going to be an absolute mess for many law enforcement agencies (not to mention law-abiding citizens), but Adams wants to pin the blame on those trying to exercise their Second Amendment rights rather than acknowledge the fact that Democrats decided for themselves to make the process as onerous and burdensome as possible for both applicants and issuing authorities. New York could have simply adopted the “shall issue” rules that are in place throughout the vast majority of the United States; passing a background check and completing the required training. Instead, anti-gun lawmakers chose to double down on treating the right to bear arms as a privilege to be doled out by the State, and the coming chaos over the state’s new carry laws should be laid directly at their feet.

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