New York legislators have tried to defy the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen by making it almost impossible to lawfully carry a concealed firearm almost everywhere in the state. In addition to the numerous “sensitive places” specifically designated as gun-free zones under the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (perhaps the most misleadingly titled bill in U.S. History), lawmakers enacted a “vampire rule” prohibiting concealed carry on all private property in the state unless signage explicitly allowing the practice was posted on the premises.
U.S. District Judge John Sinatra recently struck down that portion of the CCIA, ruling that it doesn’t fit within the national tradition of the right to keep and bear arms. Individuals can still make their property off-limits to lawful carry if they choose, but the default is that carry is allowed.
That is already the law in the vast majority of states, so it’s not like New York is now swimming in uncharted waters. In fact, the vampire rule didn’t even exist in New York until 2022. Sinatra’s decision doesn’t upend centuries or decades of established law. It simply negates one egregious infringement on our right to keep and bear arms.
The editors of the Buffalo News, however, are in full freak-out mode over Sinatra’s decision.
Commonsense gun restrictions just took another hit. Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. struck down part of New York state’s concealed carry regulations, thus making it possible for gun owners to carry a concealed firearm into a supermarket, hotel or other privately owned location open to the public.
It is a bitter blow, but not only to a city where 10 people were killed in a supermarket two years ago, but to all New York communities. Most people would like to go about their daily business without worrying that their fellow shoppers might be carrying deadly weapons.
Two years ago, the Buffalo News reported that the murderer who gunned down ten people in the grocery store decided to carry out the attack in New York, at least in part, because of its strict gun control laws. Now the editors of the very same paper want us to believe that criminals will obey “no guns allowed” signs. Here’s a newsflash for those bright journalistic lights: someone intent on committing mass murder isn’t going to be deterred by a sign informing them they’re not allowed to bring guns onto the premises.
Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose mother, Ruth Whitfield, was one of 10 Black people murdered in the May 14, 2022, Tops Markets attack, isn’t surprised, but he also has a plausible theory: “They’re trying to get as much damage done to gun laws as possible while they have that opportunity. That’s their plans. So many of these scenarios are imagined or hypothetical to challenge laws that are on the books or to prevent them from being put on the books altogether.”
It’s also frustrating that many gun owners understand the need for legitimate controls, but, as always, the extremists are drowning out the moderates — with deadly results.
I have deep sympathy for Mr. Whitfield, but his theory is utterly insane. The reason why the vampire rule was challenged (along with other “sensitive places” locations) is simple: it flies in the face of both Supreme Court precedent and our national tradition of gun ownership. The vampire rule isn’t a figment of gun owners’ imaginations or a hypothetical. It’s the law, and it was challenged almost as soon as it was enacted. Does Whitfield or the Buffalo News editors really expect that Second Amendment advocates would simply sit on their hands and stew while the state acted it outright defiance to the Bruen decision?
It’s the editors who’ve embraced an extremist position by supporting the vampire rule, not gun owners who are trying to make the right to carry a meaningful one despite the anti-civil rights maneuvering by the Democrat majority in Albany. It’s common sense to allow property owners to decide for themselves if they want to prohibit firearms. In a nation that guarantees the right to both keep and carry a gun for lawful purposes, it’s the vampire rule and its supporters who are out of step with history, tradition, and the laws in place across the vast majority of the country.
