Following the 2022 Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling, New York’s Assembly adopted a new—and some contend more restrictive—concealed carry law which allows jurisdictions to establish so-called “sensitive places” where guns are prohibited, even if the owner is licensed.
Lawmakers in Albany scrambled last year to come up with a statute to continue ratcheting down on the right to bear arms, on the grounds such restrictions will make cities safer. But it hasn’t turned out that way.
One such place is New York City’s Times Square, where on Monday night, three teens were shot and wounded in what is being reported by Fox News as some sort of dispute involving “heated words.” It reportedly happened near a restaurant.
The New York Daily News said the victims were ages 15, 17 and 18. The 15- and 18-year-old teens suffered leg wounds, the newspaper said, and were taken to Bellevue Hospital. The 17-year-old was “grazed in his armpit,” the newspaper reported. He was treated at a hospital in Harlem.
Police reportedly recovered a video apparently showing the suspect.
Shortly after the new carry legislation was signed into law, it was challenged in federal court. There are pending lawsuits, including one in which Republicans in the State Assembly have joined, according to Spectrum News. That lawsuit is known as Antonyuk v. Nigrelli, which is now before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an application to vacate a stay in the case issued by the Second Circuit.
“The District Court found, in a thorough opinion, that the applicants were likely to succeed on a number of their claims, and it issued a preliminary injunction as to twelve provisions of the challenged law,” the high court noted in its denial. “With one exception, the Second Circuit issued a stay of the injunction in full, and in doing so did not provide any explanation for its ruling.”
When the “sensitive places” designations were announced, gun rights groups were vocally critical, insisting such “gun free zones” would not prevent shootings. According to the Fox News report, New York police noted earlier this month that there has been a 16.8 percent decrease in the number of “shooting incidents” logged in June (104), compared to June 2022 (125). For the first half of this year, the number of shootings in the Big Apple declined 24.7 percent from the number reported for the first six months of 2022.
