One day, I was hanging with a group of gun rights folks here in town--it was many, many years ago--and we were all open carrying. We'd met up for dinner, and as I'm paying my tab, a woman looked at the CZ-75B on my hip and asked, "Why do you need that? What are you afraid of?"
I looked at her and said, "Nothing."
It was a bit of a glib answer, but the truth is that I don't carry because I'm afraid. I carry because I would be if I were powerless if I were unable to meet the dangers of the world and protect my family.
The truth is that when it comes to self-defense firearms, fear is a motivator. People get scared and decide they're fine with the "them or me" bargain working against them should it come to that.
And the NSSF is very unsurprised that people in New York City are embracing gun ownership.
Gun store retailers are working overtime to quell anxious and worried residents of the nation’s largest city, even as those customers are shocked to realize they aren’t able to walk in, purchase a firearm, and leave with their new gun that same day – or week, or even month.
And who can blame them?
Gun control politicians, long in control in the Empire State, have passed so many restrictions on law-abiding New Yorkers to exercise their Constitutional rights that far too many simply, out of frustration, give up. Those roadblocks, in essence, deny New Yorkers their ability to keep and bear arms and, at a time when many rush to the licensed gun retailer, the backlogs and bottlenecks can be jarring — especially for first-time buyers. Erecting barriers to the exercise of Second Amendment rights to frustrate citizens into just giving up is the intent of this regulatory scheme.
City Residents Fearful
New York City has seen an explosion of applicants seeking to obtain the state’s required permission slip to exercise their Second Amendment rights since 2022. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court in its Bruen decision struck down New York state’s restrictive and subjective “may issue” permit scheme that left most New Yorkers out of options for protecting themselves, their property and their loved ones. Even before that SCOTUS ruling, there was a surge in riots, looting and crime during the coronavirus pandemic, defund the police policies were increasingly implemented and New York policies like cashless bail and soft-on-crime prosecutors like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg let criminals back out on the streets with little or no punishment for their crimes. That does not even account for rising law enforcement retirements leaving the city increasingly vulnerable to criminal violence.
All of that was happening even before the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the recent election of avowed antigun and defund the police New York City mayor Zorhan Mamdani. His election has led to a new wave of New York City police officers filing for retirement.
Gun permit applications are skyrocketing. Prior to the Bruen decision, on average, fewer than 100 law-abiding New York City residents each month applied for a permission slip to carry a firearm in the city for self-protection. There was a surge during the coronavirus pandemic and a post-Bruen surge, with the monthly average reaching 600 before stabilizing at between 400–500 for a consistent stretch, according to data from the New York State Police Department. Following the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, the next month permit applications reached an all-time high at more than 1,270 — led by Jewish New Yorkers who decided to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Since then, an average of 700–800 permit applicants attempt the process each month, all just to exercise a God-given right enshrined in the Constitution.
Honestly, Mamdani is going to be the best gun salesman New York City has ever seen. He doesn't believe in prisons, policing, or literally anything other than letting criminals run rampant across the city. That may be fine for a nepo baby who will have taxpayer-funded security while he's in office--generally staffed by the same cops he's spent years demonizing, ironically enough--but the rest of us can't outsource our protection to other entities.
So, of course, New Yorkers are running to the gun store.
And of course they're running slap into all those regulations that were supposed to make them safer, never did, and now they see are just a pain in the kiester for law-abiding citizens who don't represent to anyone other than the criminal element.
Then again, considering some of Mamdani's comments from the past, that's probably who he really wants to protect anyway.
Even if New York City isn't the most dangerous city in the nation, all massive urban centers are dangerous, especially if you have to go into areas that are known to be bad neighborhoods.
The statistics tend to get skewed a little bit because of the ritzy and well-patrolled neighborhoods are well-populated, which means a ton of people in the city who aren't close to bad areas.
For those who have to live in and around those areas, though, there's reason to be afraid, and even those who aren't really in danger still read the news. They know there's violence aplenty in the Big Apple.
So they're buying guns because of that fear.
Once they have those guns, then what? Assuming they get a carry permit and use it as much as they can with New York state's ridiculous carry laws, the answer is simple. They won't have to fear anything anymore.
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