New York Gun Laws Fail to Keep Kids From Bringing Guns to School

In order to legally carry a gun in New York City, you'll have to fork over hundreds of dollars in permit application fees, spend hundreds more on the mandated training, submit a list of character references and a set of your fingerprints, sit for an in-person interview with the NYPD Licensing Division, and be prepared to wait for six months or more to be approved to exercise a fundamental right. 

Now, if you don't mind breaking the law, it's a much easier process to carry a gun. So easy, in fact, that a kid can do it, despite a restrictive set of laws that's supposed to make it incredibly difficult to illegally access a gun.

A 14-year-old boy was busted for bringing a loaded gun into his New York City school on Wednesday — making him the third teen caught with a weapon in Big Apple classrooms this week, according to police.

The teen was cuffed after a fight with another student led authorities to finding the .380 semi-automatic weapon stashed inside his backpack at the School of Earth Exploration and Discovery – Harlem, also known as SEED Harlem, on West 130th Street around 1 p.m., the NYPD said.

Police said the gun’s magazine was loaded, but the chamber was empty.

Two other teens were caught with guns in school on Monday morning, according to the NY Post. One of them was already wanted in connection with a shooting in the Bronx when he was discovered with a gun at Harlem Renaissance High School. The second student, a 15-year-old in Queens, was arrested at Long Island City High School after a staff member apparently spotted the pistol and informed a school official, who in turn reported the gun to police. 

Both teens have been charged with criminal possession of a weapon, which is considered a violent felony in New York City. But because both of them are underage, they'll likely spend little time behind bars even if they're convicted of the offense. Meanwhile, Dexter Taylor is sitting in a maxium security prison serving a ten-year sentence for building his own firearms, and former New York City doorman Charles Foehner was just sentenced to four years in prison for possessing guns without a permit... including one that he used to defend himself from a violent attacker with a lengthy criminal history. 

I'm sure Gov. Hochul, Mayor Mamdani, and District Attorney Alvin Bragg will pin the blame for these teens getting busted with pistols on gun laws in states like Georgia and South Carolina, or maybe point the finger at companies that make 3D printers, but the fact of the matter is that the number one source state for firearms traced by the ATF is none other than New York itself.

I pointed out last month that since the Bruen decision came down in June, 2022, the number of "illegal" guns seized by the NYPD is larger than the number of carry permits the department has issued. It really is easier to get and carry a gun on the black market than it is to do so legally, and none of New York's restrictive gun laws have changed that fact. Those laws do a far better job of preventing legal gun ownership than stopping people from getting their hands on a gun illegally, but for the anti-gunners that just means they haven't gone far enough. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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