Editorial: Gunning for New York: As shootings persist and the ghost-gun threat rises, high court threats to kill handgun regulation in the city
With shootings in New York City more than double and homicides 40% above their 2019 levels, the last thing we need is a new threat to cops’ ability to stanch the flow of illegal guns, which is directly proportional to the flow of blood on our sidewalks. There are two such threats racing toward us.
The first is the availability of untraceable, serial-number-free ghost guns like the one used outside an uptown bar early Monday morning, when a man shot four patrons before an NYPD sergeant managed to disable him. Ghost guns are assembled from parts bought online or milled or printed and then built at home from plans found online. The NYPD says it recovered about 150 of them last year, more than triple the number it seized in 2019 and nine times 2018′s total. So far in 2021, 135 have been recovered. Yikes.
After the Trump administration went wobbly, a vital proposed federal rule by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice would update the definition of a firearm for the first time since 1968 to prohibit the purchase of such kits without a background check and better enable their tracking by law enforcement. Hurry it along, and get the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulating these killers, as well as cracking down on interstate gun trafficking.
Meantime, in early November, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett, a case in which gun rights absolutists are aiming to take down New York’s legitimately high hurdle for granting concealed-carry licenses.
As New York City argued in a compelling brief filed with the high court last week, the “proper cause” requirement written into state law is necessary to keep New Yorkers safe, and fully consistent with the sane interpretation of the Second Amendment laid down over many generations. Deep-sixing it, and by judicial fiat establishing a national right to carry a concealed weapon, would be a radical and life-threatening move by a majority that claims to respect the Constitution, states’ rights and precedent.
