NYC To Gun-Owning Tourists: Drop Dead
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 3 months ago
Have a gun license? Plan to bring your gun to my hometown? Don’t.
Mean New York authorities will make your life miserable.
Patricia Jordan and her daughter flew here from her home state of Georgia. She wanted her gun nearby for protection.
Jordan obeyed all the Transportation Security Administration’s rules: She put her gun in a locked TSA-approved case with its bullets separate. She informed the airline that she had a gun. The airline had no problem with that.
In New York City, she kept the gun locked in her hotel room. She never needed it, but her daughter told me, “I was glad she brought it just in case something did happen.”
When leaving the city, Jordan followed the TSA’s rules again. At the airline counter, she again told the agent she wanted to check her gun. But this time, she was told: “Wait.”
“Next thing I know, they’re getting ready to arrest me,” she said.
Her daughter was crying, “Please don’t arrest my mom!” But New York City cops arrested her, jailed her and told her she was guilty of a felony that mandates a minimum 3 1/2 years in jail.
Jordan’s ordeal is not unique. Roughly once a week, New York City locks up people for carrying guns legally licensed by other states.
Another Georgia visitor, Avi Wolf, was jailed although he didn’t even have a gun. He just had part of a gun—an empty magazine—a little plastic box with a small metal spring. He brought it to the city because it wasn’t working well and he thought a New York friend might repair it. He couldn’t believe he was being arrested.
“Somebody could’ve done more damage to an individual with a fork from McDonald’s,” Wolf told me.
Wolf, too, checked with the TSA beforehand. They said, just declare it to TSA agents. So he did.
“I’m telling them… I have a magazine here. It’s empty, no bullets… Next thing I know they’re pulling me over to the side, they’re like, ‘Do you know what you have in your bag?!’ ‘I know what I have in my bag, I told you what I have in my bag.'”
Following TSA instructions didn’t do Wolf any good. “Fast forward about an hour and it was four Port Authority police there. The chief of LaGuardia airport is there, [as if] they thought they found somebody trying to do 9/11 repeat,” he says.
“They asked me if I had a gun license. Of course I had a license. I’m from Georgia, and everybody there’s got a gun license. And they’re like, well, sir, you’re going to be getting arrested now.”
Wolf and Jordan spent less than a day in jail, but each had to pay lawyers $15,000 to bargain the felony charge down to “public disorder.”
Gun owners know to steer clear of New York – the entire state, not just New York City. The TSA works with transportation of firearms (and they don’t do that very well). They cannot possibly tell you the laws of the state you plan to visit.
In New York, the entire state, you cannot have a handgun on your person. Not for self defense, not for any reason. The best policy is not to visit New York – the entire state – for any reason, at any time. Ever. New York is a shit hole. The same goes for Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, California and Hawaii.
Oh, by the way, besides Remington and Kimber, what firearms manufacturers are still in New York? Why hasn’t Remington and Kimber shut their doors to operations in the state of New York? That’s the only remaining question to me.
On August 10, 2017 at 3:13 am, Pat Hines said:
I was going to list Ithaca Gun Company as still in Ithaca, New York, just to be sure I looked it up.
I would have been wrong, I don’t know when they moved, but they’re now in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
http://ithacagun.com/featherlight.php
On August 10, 2017 at 8:47 am, Ned said:
My wife’s nephew got married recently in NYC. Neither of us were willing to travel behind enemy lines.
Gun laws are pretty much how i determine whether or not i will visit a state. But i have no use for NYC anyway.
On August 10, 2017 at 9:08 am, Sum Dude said:
Add New Jersey, Maryland and Cook County Illinois to your list. Those are places I WON’T travel to or through for any reason.
On August 10, 2017 at 9:28 am, KG said:
You left Maryland out of your list, they are much worse than CA. New York and Maryland are bar none *the* worst states for out-of-state gun people. Most of the stories I’ve seen of such people being targeted have been from those two states.
On August 10, 2017 at 10:01 am, Herschel Smith said:
@KG,
Yes, I should have put Maryland on the list.
@Sum Dude,
Good point. I should have mentioned that the issue isn’t merely “going to” those locations, but being around or flying “through” those locations as well. Suppose that you have to make a landing and deplane due to some problem, or suppose you have to land and hold over due to weather. If you take possession of your luggage, you’ve just committed a felony in NY. It’s a shit hole, and I won’t even go near there or chance landing there.
On August 10, 2017 at 12:25 pm, Fred said:
Don’t go where you ain’t wanted. Some folks learn this the hard way. Don’t, live by it.
On August 10, 2017 at 10:20 pm, George said:
I didn’t know that Delaware was a problem for out of state gun owners. What information about that state am I missing? Is it just pistols and revolvers or long guns as well? I don’t doubt that they don’t recognize out of state carry licenses, but is it illegal for Delaware citizens to own guns of certain types? Just trying to get educated on the matter because I am a PA resident and do not want to run afoul of their laws>
On August 10, 2017 at 11:46 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Delaware has always been a may-issue state. But I see that within the last six months they have added my home state of NC to their reciprocity list. This is still not a lot of states, though.
https://blog.princelaw.com/2017/02/15/delaware-changes-concealed-weapons-agreements-not-for-the-better/
On August 11, 2017 at 7:28 am, Kelley Taylor said:
In New York State, you can, indeed, carry a handgun on your person. It must be concealed and you must have a concealed carry permit issued by a county judge. Carrying open in NY is considered “brandishing”, and of course, owning a handgun without a permit is illegal in NY. My husband has an unrestricted permit to carry concealed in the state and owns eleven handguns. And virtually everyone else we know around here has a carry permit, too. However, keep in mind, we live in UPSTATE NY. The county judges in our area who grant the licenses, even though we are in a “may issue” state, are fairly permissive. In our county, requests for concealed carry permits are rarely turned down.
However, none of these NY state concealed carry permits are valid in NYC. How that got to be, and how that can constitutionally stand, I have no idea.
I completely understand not wanting to visit the cesspool that is NYC. But upstate is NOT NYC. We are virtual political prisoners in our own state. The rest of NY state is held hostage politically by NY state residents south of the Tappan Zee Bridge due to a massive imbalance of population. We are choosing to stand behind enemy lines. We will not be forced out of our own state. We keep the fight going from here.
So, please do not paint all us NY Staters with the same brush. We live in one of the most heavily armed counties in NY state, and we are not going anywhere.
On August 11, 2017 at 11:58 pm, Another Guy said:
As time goes on (and the situation in our country becomes increasingly more untenable), I find myself becoming more in favor of what’s described in the following quote (via ar15.com):
“Personally, I think we ought to put the Fat Kid on the back burner and declare war on California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, save Maryland
and NOVA last, hopefully they would just surrender. These States need to be liberated.”
Military action (up to, and including, the use of nuclear weapons for “special cases”) followed by occupation/annexation for those locales would benefit the body politic GREATLY.
On August 12, 2017 at 7:51 am, Talktome said:
How are any of these restrictions legal? Did NYC become supreme to the federal government and the constitution? When did that happen? I guess lawyers all know not to take a 2A case that is a slam dunk win if they get it in front of a jury and not a bought and paid for politician in a robe.
On August 13, 2017 at 1:23 pm, Mark Dietzler said:
Bear in mind that New Jersey is the state where a New Jersey Superior Court justice said, and I quote, “When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril.”
State of N.J. vs Pelleteri
http://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/appellate-division-published/1996/a339-95-opn.html
Newark International Airport is notorious for arresting travelers transiting through that airport.
On August 13, 2017 at 2:11 pm, John Hardin said:
Add New Jersey to that list of states gun owners should avoid.
On December 19, 2018 at 3:23 pm, Gun Lovers Unit! said:
New York sucks! Stossel should move to Georgia where that Patricia Jordan is and get himself a gun. It’s so much easier to get one there!
Just ask Patrica where in her state there’s so many more guns and the gun homicide rate is 14.9 per 100,000.
Unlike New York, where there’s so little guns and the gun homicide rate is only like 4.4 per 100,000.
Geeze, Stossel, you should get the heck outta New York!