The New York Times reports that Louis Zacchio opened a gun store named L & L Sports in the tony NYC suburb of Harrison, New York. We noted the local kerfuffle it caused. Needless to say, The Times story focuses on the extreme case of the vapors that some Westchester County denizens are suffering as a result of this little culture war setback.
Author Lisa Foderaro details some of the constitutionally-offensive steps that locals have taken to try to stop a law-abiding person with an FFL from opening up a gun store so close to the heart of plutocrat Michael Bloomberg’s evil empire — from a petition, to zoning laws, to outright defiance of the Constitution.
When Louis Zacchio, a longtime gun enthusiast and hunter, decided to open a gun shop in the downtown business district here, which is dotted with ice cream parlors, karate dojos and pizza places, he figured fellow residents would do a double-take. He never expected an uprising.
But more than 3,300 people have signed a petition objecting to the store’s location. And a recent town-hall-style meeting drew angry outbursts and tearful tirades from parents and teachers….
“I think you should consider how these children are feeling when they have to hide in a closet during a lockdown drill,” Nicole Marciano, a special-education teacher with a child in the school district, told a panel of local officials. “A gun store here is absolutely absurd.”
The Harrison town attorney [rightly] pointed out that if the town tried to stop Mr. Zacchio from setting up a gun store, it risked a losing civil rights law suit. Some residents wanted to double-down anyway.
[O]ne resident implored the town’s board members to risk being sued. Another pointed out that Harrison requires a permit for the sale of secondhand merchandise, which Mr. Zacchio, who plans to sell used guns, had not obtained. (The town attorney vowed to pursue the lead and Mr. Zacchio has since applied for such a permit.) Michele Geller, a small-business owner and mother of two, urged local officials to put a referendum on the store before the town’s 27,000 residents. “I don’t see this as a Second Amendment issue,” she said. “I see this as a community lifestyle issue.”
Yes, a lifestyle choice. Haven’t we heard some other arguments suggesting that one’s choice of lifestyle, if not hurting others, should be allowed, indeed, actively defended? Must have been my imagination.
Patrick Egan, a professor at NYU, called it straight here: “The reaction is not unlike the kinds of responses that, say, an abortion clinic would get if it tried to open in rural Mississippi.”
Yes, it probably is, although in the latter case, we would certainly be seeing greater outrage from newspapers based in coastal enclaves, not a one-off article below the fold.
Perhaps the better analogy here is the massive resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case that Democrats (what is it with Democrats and constitutional rights?) led in the 1950s and 60s.
If the supposedly liberally-minded people of Westchester County don’t like these comparisons, too bad. I see no reason for us to indulge their hubristic fantasy that they’re somehow on the side of angels on this one. They should look in the mirror the next time they point fingers.
Fortunately, even some people in New York agree. Ms. Foderaro somehow managed to find people who were either pro-gun, or just didn’t care what Mr. Zacchio did with his money and time if it wasn’t bothering them.
“It’s a legitimate business and as long as he follows all of the rules and regulations, then why not?” said one. “By and large the general public doesn’t have to worry about the individual who goes into that store to buy a gun….[T]he great majority of crimes are committed with firearms that are not legally purchased.” said another.
Mr. Zacchio has found that a lot of locals are supportive of him.
“The only phone calls I received are from people showing support,” Mr. Zacchio said. “No one has called to ask questions. I figured I would at least get the ‘Hey, go to hell’ call.
If our nation is ever to heal its divisions which were laid bare during this presidential campaign, we need to find new ways to get along and live together. As hard as it is for a person of the gun to live in the Empire State these days, Mr. Zacchio’s enterprise, just by showing the flag, is helping.
Robert Cialdini, a nationally-recognized expert on persuasion (and whose books you should really go out and read,) writes in his recent book, Pre-Suasion how much just being in proximity to others can prime them for persuasion:
Our ability to create change in others is often and importantly grounded in shared personal relationships, which create a pre-suasive context for assent. It’s a poor trade-off, then, for social influence when we allow present-day forces of separation—distancing societal changes, insulating modern technologies—to take a shared sense of human connection out of our exchanges….
The relationships that lead people to favor another most effectively are not those that allow them to say, “Oh, that person is like us.” They are the ones that allow people to say, “Oh, that person is of us.”
By fighting the good fight in their home communities, Mr. Zacchio and millions of gun owners like him are agents of change. Will New Yorkers one day see an ordinary American with a firearm and say “that person is one of us”? Time will tell.
GO WITH YOUR BAD SELF LOU ! ! ! GODSPEED L&L Sports !!!
Walka-proud man, walka-proud !
: )
I have a friend near there, I’ll stop in and buy something to show support.
I live on the other end of the state, if it wasn’t a 7 hour drive I’d go there to buy something myself.
With the exception that in the case of an abortion clinic, every single one of its clients has it the very top of their list, the cold-blooded murder of a particular person in mind when they walk through the door, and sadly, that blood will most likely be shed. Conversely, the vast majority of firearms owners/buyers who walk into a gun store have never considered using the firearm to coldly slaughter a defenseless child(or anyone else for that matter), simply because life would be more complicated if they let the child live.
Actually a lot of times women go into abortion clinics just to discuss the option, and get pressured into doing it by the doctor/staff.
Ohhh? So they’re just infanticide-curious? I guess that settles that.
Oh get off it, you bible thumper! You people are no better than radical Muslims…
Nobody, except YOU, mentioned or even alluded to religion, and you did so in a hateful, contemptuous, and menacing manner. It’s you who needs a refresher course in tolerance, pal.
All the OP did was express sadness over the loss of young life. That’s hardly a deeply scandalous sentiment.
I’ve been to his shop a few times. Lots of ammo at decent prices. Very nice fellow who genuinely appreciates the support he has been getting.
Maria Cuomo Cole, brother of SAFE Act guru Andrew Cuomo will showing a screening of her anti 2a documentary on Newton at the Harrison Public Library. It’s a followup to another film of hers, living for 32. Public is invited cost is free. I’m spreading the word to all of my friends from the Westchester shooting community because the audience will surely be packed with anti-2a folk
Far too many people in this country crave a false sense of safety.
They believe that if whatever scares them isn’t within plain sight that they are safe.
I am currently facing this with my local EMS division, we need to equip our EMTs and medics with bullet and knife resistant vests, but I keep getting members who are afraid that by wearing a vest that they will become a target for a shooter, some have even told me I am insane, we should be healing people, not hurting them!
Where does this poor logic stem from?! How does protecting yourself with a non-offensive device become a threat?
Just because guns aren’t sold within 20 miles of you does not mean a would be attacker wouldn’t travel 21 miles to purchase one!
How do you know an open purse isn’t a prelude to a shooting spree?
well, how do you know that officer is really an honest officer and not a crazy man with access to the internet and a false uniform?
If left to travel down this unchecked path of uneducated assumptions, I fear this nation will be lost to those who do see the world for what it is. The world has and always will be filled with a lack of peace.
World peace and unicorns are in the same basket of dreams.
When the offspring of “the greatest generation” spend three generations of keeping children acting and thinking like children into their “adult” years, you get what you see. The mindset is, “I am a good person, a reasonable person. I do not live, work or play in a “bad” part of town. Bad people are always living where only bad people live, and I don’t live there. So, if I do not do anything like bad people, if I do nothing to attract the attention of bad people, life is good, fun, and safe. I am a good, reasonable person. It is only fair and just that my life be lived in safety.”
It’s not a basket (those are forever reserved for Deplorables). It’s a thin WalMart plastic bag.
Tell your EMT/EMS crews to look up NYFD in the 70’s up in the Bronx. Homegrown (D) terrorist mf’s. They are a huge target.
Plus, isis turds and muslim rabble love to go after first responders.
“Community lifestyle issue”…maybe he should serve coffee and teach yoga? If I lived near this guy I would patronize his shop. I wish him luck.
“I think you should consider how these children are feeling when they have to hide in a closet during a lockdown drill,”
I have considered it and to be perfectly honest I resent your phony drills and recognize them for what they are: indoctrination to the world of hoplophobia. This would be why I’ve instructed my kid, an eight grader, to be vocal about the alternate plans to dying cowering in a closet – either GTFO or the use of improvised weaponry as a means to fight back. For being a rather diverse school district, I’m surprised by the reactions he’s gotten, which have been mostly agreement that the “cower in the corner” plans are horsepucky.
Will New Yorkers one day see an ordinary American with a firearm and say “that person is one of us”?
Sure. When pigs fly.
New York City (and its suburbs) is the epicenter of the culture war. To them, we are all rubes, hicks and hillbillies, and they are the anointed masters of the universe. There sense of superiority is unbounded.
And BTW, the “good folks” of Harrison who are ex-pats from NYC also hate black and Puerto Rican people. Which is why they no longer live in NYC, even though they would never admit it.
Yes sir, Progressives have a real problem with real “tolerance”. When Progressives speak about “tolerance”, what they mean is that everyone else should tolerate whatever they do.
The fact that so many Progressive elitists move away from minority populations is tacit proof that they have no interest in true tolerance.
You don’t “heal” your “division” with a cancer. You excise it and eradicate it.
If I’m ever in the State of New York, I’ve found a new place to hang out. (At least I’ll feel, and likely be, safe)!
Keep the faith, brother!
I see that Nicole Marciano, a special education teacher, is all concerned about the feelings of children hiding in closets. It just dawned on me that perhaps my decades-held assumptions have been wrong. All this time, I thought that special education teacher’s purpose was to teach children with learning disabilities. Is it instead that they are supposed to teach children to be retarded? If so, I’m sure she’s a great teacher.
As a child, I periodically spent some time hiding under my desk during air-raid drills. That was a fairly useless exercise, too, and I think many baby-boomers held onto some Cold War anxieties because of those atomic bomb drills. Perhaps the best way to avoid angst over hiding in closets is to quit that phony crap and do something meaningful about school protection.
Right in Hillary’s backyard. Perfect. Especially after she essentially shutdown my former workplace because she bitched about a pipeline going through there. Goodluck and Godspeed to you Sir!
Good luck to him! I can’t believe you need a permit there to sell second hand goods. That shows me the locals want nothing more than to live within the all embracing loving hug of government!
“If our nation is ever to heal its divisions which were laid bare during this presidential campaign, we need to find new ways to get along and live together.”
Allow me to point out an ever-so-slight problem there: Progressives refuse to get along with people who are different. That is why Progressives demand laws that criminalize “different” people … including government agents using firearms to imprison/kill those “different” people for breaking said laws.
Classic liberals and many conservatives embrace the principle “Do whatever you want as long as you do not harm someone.” Progressives have no use for such a policy because it does not empower them to crush people who have the “wrong” beliefs. That is why we will never be able to “get along” … unless “get along” means that classic liberals and conservatives can use deadly force to repel Progressive attempts to crush people who are “different”.
This issue has been blowing up in my FaceSmash feed – I had no idea so many of my fellow suburbanites were such limp-wristed bed-wetters.
“I think you should consider how these children are feeling when they have to hide in a closet during a lockdown drill,” Nicole Marciano, a special-education teacher with a child in the school district, told a panel of local officials.
How does telling kids “if a violent lunatic breaks in, this dark space is where you’re going to die” help anyone? This lady isn’t a teacher, she’s an emotional arsonist working in a system that routinely terrorizes little children.
Permit=Per-mit-ion from a governmental authority to do something, providing a source of income for the authority. Usually of no other value except when fined for not having one. As examples, I need a $75 permit to burn leaves and branches in my own back yard. The nearby city requires a permit to use a metal detector. And of course there’s always the CPP or your local variant…
I’ve been to many gun shops in my time. Very few are at all fancy, suggesting to me that the margins are tight.
Some gun shops are upscale, but they tend to be high volume shops. I’m not sure how a gun shop in NYC will be high volume enough to pay the rent, let alone the on-coming barrage of law suits. It’s too hard to get permission to own a gun in that city for there to be a lot of volume. Real estate is really expensive there.