Of the many gun-free zones in New York City, one of them is the subway platforms. You can't take a weapon on the subway, because there's never been an issue with crime on the New York City subway system. Just ask Bernhard Goetz.
Anyway, the platforms themselves are gun-free zones, but that hasn't really worked out like it was supposed to. Yes, I see your shocked faces now.
In fact, a Bronx man just got shot on a gun-free platform.
A man was shot in the leg Wednesday during an attempted robbery on a subway platform in the Bronx.
...
According to police, a 25-year-old man was standing on the northbound B/D platform when two individuals approached him and demanded his belongings.
After a struggle, police say one of the individuals shot the 25-year-old in the leg. Both of the individuals then ran away.
Well, would you look at that? Once again, we see how gun control doesn't actually stop bad guys with guns. A gun-free zone sign on the platform doesn't deter the criminals. If anything, it emboldens them because they don't have to worry about anyone carrying a firearm who might object to what they have planned.
Hell, even those who don't have a gun of their own like those signs, because it means they don't have to worry about getting shot for producing something like a knife or even a screwdriver, as Goetz's would-be assailants all possessed back in the day. They like unarmed victims because, at the end of the day, criminals are cowards. They only act when they have overwhelming force, such as multiple people or a gun when no one else can have one.
But what if the 25-year-old man had been armed himself? What if he'd been allowed to carry a firearm with him for self-defense? The bad guys are already doing it, so there's not going to be an influx in that sort of thing, but what if the good guys had guns, too?
We might still be talking about this, but it would be an armed citizen story; one to raise your spirits on a difficult day. It wouldn't be about some innocent dude who objected to being robbed and got shot because he didn't have the means to defend himself. He clearly had the will to fight back, he just didn't have the tools to do so.
I won't pretend that just because he was willing to fight that he'd have been inclined to own a gun and carry it, mind you, because things are never that simple and I don't know this person. It's entirely possible that he's one of the millions in the city who have bought completely into the anti-gun rhetoric about how things like gun-free zones make everyone safer and how more guns simply mean more crime.
But I bet he's thinking about getting one now. I bet he's thinking about that, what kind of holster he needs for concealed carry, and is thinking about carrying that with him everywhere he goes from now on.
Too bad New York won't let him.