New York City Concealed Carry Applications Down 2.4%

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that an America citizen’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms supersedes (trumps, negates, takes precedence over, kicks the ass of) local, city and state gun control restrictions. In response, the New York City Police Department has joined the majority of the United States licensing authorities in processing concealed carry weapons (CCW) applications on a “shall issue” basis. In other words, they have to prove an applicant shouldn’t receive a license, rather than the applicant proving that they should. Just kidding. I mean, c’mon. Mayor Bloomberg is gun control’s cheerleader-in-chief. You want a concealed carry permit for New York City? Go **** yourself. Unless you’re a celebrity . . .

J.Lo and her 2-year-old twins can rest easy at night: Daddy is packing heat.

Singer Marc Anthony is one of dozens of celebs, millionaires and high-profile athletes authorized to carry a concealed weapon in the city, records show.

And the number of A-listers who have guns is growing.

“We have seen an increase in celebs seeking their own permits,” said John Skylar Chambers, a lawyer who has helped New Yorkers get gun permits for more than 20 years.

The New York Daily News isn’t crusading here. Of course, neither is Mr. Skylar, whose lifestyle depends entirely on greasing the wheels for his wealthy clients, so they can be safer than the tax-paying peons that form the majority of New York City’s eight million inhabitants. Or the millions of people who enter the city each day to try and put food on their family’s table.

The inequity is between rich and working class, glitterati and true grit, is nothing less than spectacular.

While experts say the number of celebs allowed to carry guns is on the rise, the number of overall permits issued in the city this year is down from last year. There were 2,145 carry permits issued last year compared with 2,093 this year – a dip of about 2.4%.

Hey how about an idea of the total number of applications? So we can figure out how many citizens were denied a concealed carry permit. Not that most folks would bother, given the expense and the virtual certainty that their application would fail.

The Mayor and his gun control supporters defend their “One rule for us, one rule for them” gun permit policy by pointing at the City’s declining crime rate. Click here for the stats for “The Safest Big City in America.”

Note: the press release does not include any “hard data.” You know; the actual numbers of actual crimes. These crime rate stats are simply the overall odds of bad shit going down (the technical term). If you have to work in an ER late at night, or carry cash, live near a crack house, etc., the city’s general success at fighting crime won’t apply to your individual circumstances.

So click here to download the hard data from the Department of Justice’s Crime in New York State 2009 Final Data. Before I give you the money shot, here’s a look at what stringent gun control did for New York state”s firearm-related crime. Oh, notice I said state. For some reason, “These figures are only available from the non-New York City region.”

Over the last 10 years, there has been a general increase in the use of firearms in violent crimes, with the highest count reported in 2006 (6,164 or 19% of violent crimes). In 2009, there were 5,298 reported violent crime incidents which involved a firearm, a decrease of almost 1% over 2008, and an increase of 18% over 2000.

Appendix 5 shows that during 2009, 181 of 310 murders reported outside of New York City involved a firearm (58%). This was the highest proportion by firearm over the last 10 years, up from 50% in 2000. The number of firearm-related robberies also increased by 8% over 2000, but the proportion by firearm has remained relatively stable at approximately 30%. The number of aggravated assaults fell by 800 between 2000 and 2009, but the num-ber by firearm rose from 1,697 to 2,282 (35%).

Huh. OK, now, remember, New York City crime was out of control back in the day. So yes, there’s been a dramatic drop in crime. But here are the absolute numbers of violent crimes that Big Apple dwellers experienced in 2009, from page 5 of the report. I’ve listed the crime rate per 100,000 population in parenthesis. Them’s your odds of facing the crime in question, all things being equal. As stated above, they’re not.

Total violent crimes reported: 74,825 (383)

Murder – 762 (4)
Forcible Rape – 2,572 (13.2)
Robbery – 28,070 (143.7)
Aggravated Assault – 43,401 (222.1)

All things considered, your average New York City dweller has a .3 percent chance of becoming a victim of violent crime. That’s nothing—unless it’s you. Put another way, a woman living in the City has a better chance of being raped than winning the New York lottery (whose exact odds are hidden somewhere on their website).

Does any of this really matter? Imagine an auditorium filled with 2,572 rape victims, both male and female. (Remembering that rape is a notoriously under-reported crime.) Quick show of hands. How many of you wish you’d been carrying a handgun before you were attacked?

Just as people buy a lottery just in case they win—not expecting to do so—people want to carry a gun just in case they encounter a rapist, robber, gang banger or deranged individual. And they have a Constitutional right to do so.

If the New York City Police Department consider the odds of celebrity needing a firearm for self-defense (many of whom have armed bodyguards) greater than the odds of a hospital worker or jeweler or someone living in a high crime area, then they need to talk to a statistician.

Bad laws suck. Bad laws applied unfairly suck even worse. It’s time for the courts to remove “unreasonable” unconstitutional restrictions on the right to bear arms (as witnessed in The Big Apple) and level the playing field, so that all American can exercise those rights equally.