Uh-oh, sooner or later we knew it would happen. We elect a President who actually shows some concern about gun violence and the other side gets its conservative friends on the Supreme Court to expand gun ‘rights.’
Here’s what the Giffords group had to say about yesterday’s announcement that the Court will take up a challenge to a New York State law which makes someone jump through a whole bunch of legal hoops before they can walk around the neighborhood carrying a gun: “Today’s announcement,” said Giffords, “is a warning sign that our nation’s highest court is poised to brush aside the will of the people and instead side with gun lobby groups seeking to eliminate even the most modest firearm laws.”
Not to be outdone, our friends at Everytown made sure to link this threat to our safety to the threat posed by Covid-19: “Gun violence has only worsened during the pandemic, and a ruling that opened the door to weakening our gun laws could make it even harder for cities and states to grapple with this public health crisis.”
The New York State law basically says that if you want to walk around town with a gun in your pocket, you have to apply for a license which is different from the license you need to buy or own a gun. While the latter license only requires that you pass a background check, the former requires that the applicant explain why he needs to use a gun for self-protection, and if the explanation doesn’t convince the issuing authority that there’s a good reason to be self-armed, the application can be denied.
The problem raised by the plaintiffs in the New York case is not whether New York State can issue a separate license to allow someone to walk around with a gun. The alleged denial of 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’ is based on the fact that the cops have complete and arbitrary authority to approve or deny the concealed-carry license request. How do the cops figure out whether someone has made a convincing argument for protecting himself with a gun? Whatever way they want to figure it out.
Our friend David Hemenway published a study on this licensing procedure in Massachusetts, which is one of the eight states, along with New York, which grants police an arbitrary authority to decide who can and who cannot walk around with a gun. A large majority of the 121 police chiefs who answered David’s survey stated they were comfortable with the retaining discretionary authority over the issuance of concealed-carry permits, but only 2% of the permit requests were denied each year.
Let’s say the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs in this case and says that New York State has to relinquish its authority to arbitrarily decide who can, and who cannot walk around with a gun. This would represent such an ‘elimination of modest firearm laws’ (to quote Giffords) that New York State would join the other 42(!) states which have already ‘eliminated’ this ‘modest’ firearm law.
In 1986, there were exactly 7 states whose residents could apply for a concealed-carry permit without having to cite a particular need. That same year, the national homicide rate stood at 8.6, with 60% of all homicides committed with guns. In 2019, with 42 states giving just about every law-abiding resident the right to walk around with a gun, the homicide rate was 5.8, with 75% of all homicides committed with guns.
What’s the connection between the so-called elimination of ‘modest’ gun laws and an increase in gun violence throughout the United States? Beats hell out of me.
Know why our homicide rate keeps going down but more and more of the killings are committed with guns? Because we are the only country in the entire world which imposes ‘modest’ gun laws based on how we hope gun owners will behave, and not on what kinds of guns they can own.
Want to get rid of gun violence? Get rid of the guns which are used to commit violence, okay?
Apr 27, 2021 @ 10:01:41
Its “may issue” on trial and presumably because of what you stated so well: the process is complete and arbitrary, i.e., “Whatever way they want to figure it out.”. Some jurisdictions have higher hoops than others such as the Big Apple.
If Hemenway et al want to make a case that this will result in rivers of blood in the street, they ought to show that CHL holders from “shall issue” states have a greater propensity for going off the rails than those from “may issue” states. Otherwise, this is just another case of chasing the wrong dog.
I get the Albuquerque newspaper. Just about every day someone is shooting someone, and none of them, if I read the paper correctly, has a concealed weapon permit.
Seems that if the Court does strike this down, and I remain unconvinced its a done deal, it is to put a well defined process in place that has clear rules, is tough and weeds out those who don’t want to jump the hoop, but doesn’t allow the cops to decide by whatever flavor of ad hoc thinking they want to use today.
Full disclosure. I grew up and went to college and grad school in NYS. Got my permit to carry from Monroe County. Had two retired cops and a security chief as my references, You needed three to apply.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 10:42:16
I knew you’d be complaining about this, Mike. I for one can’t wait to walk around just about where ever I want with a highly concealable bottom loading “killer handgun” filled with “military grade” ammunition. I think I’ll get the Shield Plus. All your whining about it convinced me that it’ll make a fine addition to my arsenal.
If you’re a REAL gun person, this is wonderful news, even though nothing has been decided yet. Hopefully this is just the beginning. Imagine being able to walk down the streets of LA with a suppressed AR-15 loaded with a 100 round magazine. Come on, SCOTUS make the gun grabbers cry!
Apr 27, 2021 @ 11:30:37
Mike’s Question?: “Want to get rid of gun violence? Get rid of the guns which are used to commit violence, okay?”
Maybe the questions should be:
Want to get rid of violence with a gun?
Answer: Look at our judicial system.
Here is an example of our judicial system: A man who’s accused of running onto the field during a White Sox game Friday evening got a good taste of Chicago’s judicial system priorities when a judge ordered him held on a higher bail than some accused gun offenders received during the same felony bond court session.
Now, you might think that judges in Chicago — where just under 1,000 people have been shot already this year, 178 fatally — might consider illegal gun possession to be a greater concern to the community than a Sox fan’s rollick across Guaranteed Rate Field. But Judge David Navarro apparently disagrees.
Judge Navarro on Saturday ordered Liam Wolfer held in lieu of $5,000 bail on a charge of criminal trespass to a place of public amusement after prosecutors said Wolfer dodged security officers while dashing from one foul pole to the other as the South Siders faced the Texas Rangers.
Wolfer, who has a pending misdemeanor DUI case (another example of “assault alcohol”), had to post a $500 deposit to get out of jail.
DURING THE SAME HEARING, Navarro released no fewer than three men accused of felony illegal gun possession on THERE OWN RECOGNIZANCE — that is…NO MONEY DOWN, this according to court records. Navarro allowed THREE OTHER alleged gun offenders to go home for the SAME AMOUNT WOLFER HAD TO PAY.
W A I T T H E R E ‘ S M O R E:
Another defendant during Saturday’s court session was allegedly caught on video as he looted a Walgreens in Old Town during widespread unrest on August 10, 2020. Navarro put him in the same class as Wolfer, too: $500 to go home.
The judge placed only slightly higher prices on the release of two men charged with more serious gun violations.
One, A THREE-TIME CONVICTED FELON, was charged with having a gun under his driver’s seat during a traffic stop. A Chicago Police Department surveillance camera allegedly recorded the other as he fired a gun on the street. Navarro let them each go home for $1,000 — now let’s see, that would be equal to two dashes across a baseball field, apparently.
If researchers would start earning their money and stop researching the low hanging fruit maybe they would start looking into our judicial system and how it’s failing most every community. One place to look would be the Chicago court system. Just a quick look at that system shows at least 17 people have been charged with murder, attempted murder, or shooting someone while out of jail on affordable bail amounts set by Navarro in just two years.
Ten of those alleged violent re-offenders were on bail for gun charges and two were awaiting trial for carjacking when they picked up the new allegations.
NOW, LETS PASS ANOTHER GUN LAW.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 12:10:11
Sounds like New Mexico, Alan.
A while back I read an article about a former Chicago police chief. He lamented that in NYC, where he previously worked, people would fling their guns rather than be arrested for illegal possession because they were afraid of the judges. In Chicago, they keep their guns because they have nothing to fear from the judges but get sanctioned by their street gangs if they lose a gun.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 12:23:14
My point exactly, khal.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 12:19:39
P.S. A good article on enforcing the laws already on the books, can be found in the latest issue of the “American Rifleman” magazine page 12. (The same magazine Mike wrote about on April 12th)
The last paragraph of the article really drives the point home: “So why don’t gun-ban politicians ever demand that tough existing laws be enforced? Because their goal is not safety. Their track record clearly shows that they have no interest in protecting anyone, save for the criminals. Their only goal is to malign NRA members and law-abiding gun owners en route to destroying the Second Amendment.”
As for me…I’ll stick to the Sig Sauer P365 I purchased the other day for $525 which is a highly concealable, bottom loading, “killer handgun” that can be filled with “military grade” ammunition. And tomorrow I’m headed to my local gun store to purchase two 15 round magazines.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 12:44:19
The gun ban folks just don’t like citizens owning guns. Period. Especially handguns and military style rifles rather than guns designed for trap, skeet, or hunting (which of course can also be used to kill people but that was not their design space). The idea is that only the state should have lethal force, i.e., Max Weber’s “monopoly on violence”. And of course, the elephant in the room is that as others have shown looking at homicide maps, its minorities and the poor who are generally committing gun crime and that is the third rail of the liberal discussion. Its better to put a picture of an NRA member with a beard holding an AR on the Everytown or Giffords home page as the enemy. Culture wars trump reality.
So sure, if no one had guns, we would be stabbing or punching each other, etc. Much harder for a fight between two morons to escalate to gunshots, or a despondent guy who lost his job to perform DIY brain surgery, if no one has a gun. I get that. But the drug cartels would still find guns available and I suppose in this day and age, clandestine shops would print or mill guns. And finally, the U.S. homicide rate was far higher more than half a century ago before everyone had a bottom loading military style pistol. I suspect that people who want to shoot each other use what they can get their hands on. Remember the drive to ban Saturday Night Specials? Well, we got all the crummy guns off the street and now, to paraphrase Country Joe and the Fish, “be the first kid on your block to get your hands on a big, bad Glock”. I think its called the law of unintended consequences.
Sigh.
Apr 27, 2021 @ 18:53:10
Oh, khal I remember those lyrics well. You see, I was one of those boys that my mother and father didn’t hesitate before it was too late to have not just me, but my two brothers to pack for Vietnam. I was drafted and served my country instead of protesting in New York and other places across this great country. I can remember listening to those lyics and wondering, when I was so far away, if my mother and father would be the first one on their block to have one of their boys come home in a box.
I’ve carried a firearm most everyday since I was drafted. As someone once said “I didn’t die for my country but others died for theirs.” Maybe that’s why I love our Constitution and believe so strongly in it.
Apr 28, 2021 @ 13:12:58
The amusing thing is the US Supreme Court has pretty much said in the dicta to Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897) that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms (Art. II) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons;”
The Court described exceptions to the Second Amendment in Heller as “presumptively lawful regulatory measures,” and it is hard to imagine the Court invalidating them in a future case.’ For all practical purposes, these issues have been decided-and decided in favour of constitutionality. And one of those exceptions was concealed carry with the statement “For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.”
As I pointed out earlier, one of those courts was the US Supreme Court. Even though that statement was made in the dicta to Robertson v Baldwin. If using the dicta in Dred Scott v Sanford is OK to establish this right, then using the dicta in another Supreme Court case should be more than acceptable to limit that right.
The amusing thing is that the early court decisions on this topic denouncing concealed-carry practice as, among other things, “dangerous,” “cowardly,” “detestable and heathenish,” and “provocative of violence and murder.” There is a lot of disgust for the practise of carrying concealed weapons and expanding the right to “bear” is even crazier than what came out of Heller-McDonald.
People carrying concealed weapons were considered cowards because most frontier settlers believed it honourable to give foes “fair warning.” Openly carried weapons were the accepted norm, with a holstered pistol being the recommended accoutrement for those bearing arms. Moreover, concealed weapons were perceived to perpetuate crime, “because persons becoming suddenly angered and having such a weapon in their pocket, would be likely to use it, which in their sober moments they would not have done, and which could not have been done had not the weapon been upon their person.”
So, open carry is OK, but concealing is not…
It’ll be fun!
Apr 28, 2021 @ 13:37:21
I’m pretty sure that open carry is banned in New York State unless you are hunting or at a range and prohibited, period, in NYC. For that matter, to even own a handgun in NYS requires the permit. The permit mandates concealed carry outside the home in most cases. So if a permit is denied, one cannot even own a handgun, to say nothing of carrying it outside the home.
My hunch is if the Court wants to rule narrowly, it will say that NYS’s “may issue” law is arbitrary and capricious and must be modified to include some sort of appeals process and transparency if and when a permit application is denied.Or if it builds on Heller, it might say that you cannot use the “may issue” protocols simply to own a gun in the home. I don’t know, actually, what they will do. I’m not a lawyer and don’t play one on TV. I guess we will find out next year.
Apr 28, 2021 @ 14:55:24
Well, given that the process is already handled by a judge who reviews the applications. I believe there is also an appeals process to boot.
OTOH, all the case law was concealed carry was unacceptable;le, but open carry was!
I am a lawyer, have been for over 30 years. I was the popular officer for defending during disciplinary matters when I was in the military (one of the people I was with said she knew I would go on to practise law). And I was one of two people who ran the US Attorney for DC’s gun program in the 1990s.
Apr 28, 2021 @ 19:21:57
I’ve not lived in NYS for a long time. I think each county does its own processing but I don’t know if all are identical; have not read the Sullivan Act or how it is implemented. My permit (1976) was signed by a judge in Monroe County but there never was a hearing with me present. The permit just appeared in the mail.
Ulster Co. has a good explanation of its process at the link below. Says nothing about what you can do if the judge rejects the application. Or, if that ever happens.
https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2015/12/10/what-it-takes-to-get-a-pistol-permit-in-new-york-state/
I had a friend in the JAG office in the Navy. Great guy. Thank you for your service and for offering your expertise here.