“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

While there’s not much in there that can reasonably be taken to mean gun rights should be heavily restricted, a lot of people seem to think otherwise. Those people tend to be concentrated in huge cities, places like New York.

Yet in the old Big Apple, employees of a well-known bank fear they’re being targeted for violent crimes despite that city’s long and…*ahem*…illustrious history of gun control.

Goldman Sachs’ New York employees griped that they increasingly face becoming targets of violent crime during their commutes after a coworker at the megabank was tragically gunned down on the subway.

“Can Goldman lead the pack for banks on issuing Kevlar vests?” one fed-up Goldman banker wrote on the popular corporate message board Wall Street Oasis.

“Can’t wait for the new bulletproof Patagonia,” another quipped.

Dark wisecracking about the dangers of public transportation comes just weeks after the Wall Street giant slashed a slew of pandemic-era perks that included free Ubers to and from headquarters in lower Manhattan.

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“Management pushing for a return to the office should have to take public transit in,” one user wrote.

Another suggested hitting “reply all” to a note that CEO David Solomon sent employees following the shooting and asking “DJ D-Sol if he will take the subway to work tomorrow?”

Now, I get them being upset. While most people don’t get free Ubers no matter what they do, when you’ve been enjoying a perk, it’s hard not to get worked up when you lose it.

And Ubers are, typically, safer than the subway.

But in a free society, gun rights would actually deal with a lot of this.

Let’s remember that New York heavily restricts who can and cannot carry a firearm. While many suspect its days of doing so are limited, it’s still the law on the books right now. So, even if these employees wanted to carry a firearm for their own protection, they can’t.

One of their own was killed, but under New York’s draconian carry permit scheme, that’s simply not enough for them to get a permit to carry a firearm. They’re well-paid bankers in a city that’s teeming with poverty and crime, but a general desire to defend oneself isn’t ample reason to exercise one’s gun rights, according to the state.

Granted, the Supreme Court will likely change that in the near future–possibly as early as next week–but for now, there’s not much anyone can do except pray.

It shouldn’t be that way.

While not everyone will want to carry a firearm and others simply cannot for whatever reason, the idea behind gun rights is that it provides a kind of herd immunity against violent crime. If the bad guys don’t know who is and isn’t carrying a gun, they’ll likely rethink their plans for armed robbery and/or murder.

But New York has made it so difficult that criminals simply don’t have to worry, and that’s an issue.

Gun rights keep people safe. It’s just that simple.