Congress would be insane to override New York’s gun laws
Manhattan DA Cy Vance is right again: It would be an enormous “mistake” for Congress to de facto nationalize US gun laws at the lowest common denominator with the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.
Outrageous, too — since federal lawmakers have a heck of a lot of urgent work on their plates, from replacing ObamaCare to passing pro-growth tax reform. (Go repeal some dumb regulations, if you’re that bored.) It may be easier to indulge in culture-war gestures like forcing loose gun laws down New York City’s throat, but that’s hardly an excuse.
Not to mention the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you own it. This is now the safest large city in America, with homicides at historic lows. In the public’s eye, lawmakers who pass this law would wind up owning every shooting from a gun legalized under it — including the inevitable dead cops.
The NRA and other gun-rights types might see this as payback for the relentless push by New Yorkers like ex-Mayor Mike Bloomberg for tougher gun laws in the rest of the country. In fact, it’s the same thing: a foolish effort to push a parochial set of values into areas where they don’t make sense (at least, not to the people who actually live there).
We’re not obsessively pro- or anti-gun: We’ve always supported the NYPD’s efforts to get illegal guns off the street, yet see no point in throwing the book at every idiot tourist who doesn’t realize his out-of-state gun permit is no good here.
And we slapped Gov. Cuomo for his drive to rush through slapdash new state gun controls after the Sandy Hook horror.
No magical perfect gun law — not the NRA’s, not Bloomberg’s — is going to make America or any part of it a drastically safer place: The world just doesn’t work that way.
Arrogant ideologues can do real damage if people of good sense don’t stop them. Here’s hoping Congress still has the sense to avoid this particular idiocy.