Days after a gay couple were attacked and beaten in New York City’s Times Square, while onlookers reportedly did nothing to help, a national gun rights organization condemned the incident and issued a scathing statement about Empire State gun control.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said the brutal incident “offers more proof that publicly declaring such a place to be a “gun-free zone” is like hanging out a “Welcome” sign for dangerous bigots and criminals.” Under the state’s 2022 gun permit law, many areas can be declared “sensitive places,” and that definition now applies to Times Square. It’s a “gun free zone.”
According to Fox News, the gay couple was “targeted and attacked by four suspects.” The police do not have any suspects in custody, and police were reportedly looking at the attack as a “hate crime.”
The four thugs reportedly used profanity and made anti-gay comments. They beat one of the victims so bad he had to have a metal plate installed in his fractured jaw. The Fox News story said the victims were treated at Mount Sanai Hospital.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb expressed disgust at the attack, and pointed a finger at the state’s new gun law, which turned Times Square and other public places into safe working environments for “dangerous bigots and criminals,” when the Square was designated as a “sensitive place.”
“By removing the deterrent factor, and making it impossible for people to fight back if attacked in a public place, the City of New York and lawmakers in Albany have essentially given the green light to thugs for this kind of behavior,” Gottlieb said Monday. “When you make it impossible for people to defend themselves, and then publicize it, you may as well declare an open season, especially against those most vulnerable to attack.”
Gottlieb recalled last year’s scramble by Empire State lawmakers to rewrite the state’s concealed carry law following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which nullified the century-old concealed carry law as unconstitutional. The new law was written to make it even tougher for law-abiding citizens to be armed against crime. The law has enabled anti-gun administrations throughout the state, especially New York’s mayor and council, to create widespread “sensitive areas” where firearms are no longer permitted, even in businesses where they had been previously allowed.
“You do not deter violent criminals by making their victims more vulnerable,” Gottlieb observed. “You don’t stop them by failing to prosecute them, a policy Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg can hardly brag about. This logic seems to escape liberal lawmakers and their supporters in the gun prohibition lobby.
“Times Square is one of the top destination spots in the country,” he continued, “but why should anyone, straight or gay, consider going there if they might risk a beating, or worse, simply because of who they are? The victims faced multiple attackers. It’s this kind of attack that led to the creation of the Pink Pistols, an organization of gay gun owners.
“The New York police have indicated they may investigate the incident as a hate crime,” Gottlieb said. “Social prejudice takes many forms, and certainly includes the type practiced officially by politicians against American gun owners, against whom New York’s extremist gun laws amount to a hate crime disguised as law. The victims in this case had as much right to be in Times Square as anyone who stood by and watched, and did nothing, because they have been made powerless.
“We should all feel safe, no matter who or where we are,” he stated. “Chalk up one more victory for gun control, and a defeat for common decency. Anti-gunners win when the rest of us lose.”
