Under the twisted vision of the Supreme Court majority, states and localities are now barred from deciding who can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. While it’s allowed to ban felons, require training and the like, six justices’ absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment rules out requiring people to show a specific need to be armed in public. That will soon leave police facing a fresh flood of gun-wielding people on the city’s streets, above and beyond the thousands of illegal weapons already being recovered as shootings surge.
Lest we leave our cops and civilians defenseless, New York leaders must push back — which is thankfully what three top pols did this week.
Credit first goes to Attorney General Tish James and Mayor Eric Adams. Their simultaneously filed city and state lawsuits, relying on purchases over many years by undercover investigators, accuse gun distributors of evading the law by willfully delivering thousands of banned “ghost gun” firearm components to New Yorkers over many years, without serial numbers on them or a background check on their purchasers. James’ and Adams’ aim is true: The documentation of brazen illegality, including the breaking of New York’s relatively new statute deeming gun makers and distributors liable for the harm they cause when they irresponsibly market their products, is exhaustive.
