For the second time in less than a week, shots rang out in one of New York City's "gun-free zones", this time leaving one person dead and five others injured. The shooting took place at a subway station in the Bronx on Monday evening, in what police are describing as a dispute between two groups of teenagers that started on a subway car and escalated once the train pulled into the station. 

NYPD transit chief Michael Kemper says some of the victims were apparently part of the group that was fighting, while others were caught in the crossfire. 

“Why do people feel emboldened to pull guns out and shoot them? There must be consequences when these arrests are made,” he said.

An even better question would be how those guns got inside the subway system given that New York City has declared public transit a "sensitive place" where lawful concealed carry is banned. Oh, that's right. There aren't any special security measures taken to ensure that the "gun-free zone" is actually gun-free. New Yorkers are just supposed to take it as a matter of faith that once signs are posted, violent criminals will obey the demand to leave their gun behind. 

So far police haven't made any arrests in Monday's shooting, though they have filed charges in last week's shooting in "gun-free" Times Square. In that case, authorities say a 15-year-old from Venezuela who'd only been in the city since last September pulled out a gun and fired shots as a security guard tried to stop him from shoplifting at a Times Square store, injuring a tourist from Brazil as he fled the scene. Police have also connected the teen to two other violent crimes in recent weeks. 

[Jesus] Rivas-Figueroa, who was ushered to court by two detectives, wore the same dark T-shirt and jeans he was photographed in during his arrest walking into court with a scowl on his face and his hands cuffed behind his back.

He shook his head no when asked if he spoke English, and refused to answer when a Post reporter called his name and asked, “Porque?” or “why?”

The US Marshals Joint Regional Fugitive Task Force and the NYPD collared the “armed and dangerous” Venezuelan teen in Yonkers on Friday.

A woman can be heard wailing in a video that shows him being taken into custody at around 3:30 p.m. Friday at what sources said was the home of a relative on Saratoga Avenue. The teen also wept.

The arrest came moments after NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell, during a news conference, had identified Rivas-Figueroa as a person of interest in the shooting.

The teen arrived in September and had been staying at a temporary shelter at the Stratford Hotel on West 70th Street. 

He is also a suspect in a Jan. 25 incident in Midtown in which shots were fired at a park on 45th Street, and a Jan. 27 gunpoint robbery in the Bronx, police said.

If you want to legally own and carry a firearm in New York City, it'll take you several months, hundreds of dollars, and 18 hours of training before you can do so, and even then you won't be allowed to carry in many parts of the city. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old who's only been in this country for six months or so can easily acquire a gun on the black market and tote it around wherever he goes. 

Seems to me that New York's gun laws are doing a much better job of disarming the law-abiding than violent criminals, who are carrying with impunity and pulling the trigger without any regard for the lives around them. The city's "gun-free zones" and restrictions on the right to carry aren't making anyone safer. They're just making it almost impossible for the average New Yorker to protect themselves from those willing and able to break the law. I don't expect these shootings will cause the New York City Council or Eric Adams to rethink their unconstitutional approach to public safety, but their policies are putting the public at risk while depriving countless citizens of their right to armed self-defense.