At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’m not Jewish, but some of my best friends are Jews.
Also, I’m not from NYC, but I did live there for a total of about 3 years back in the 1970s, and I’ll confirm that even back then, that particular neighborhood in Crown Heights already had a long held reputation for being difficult to get along with. Now, I might not be remembering this correctly, so those of you born and reared there might know better than me, but I seem to recall a criminal case back then involving a confrontation between a Jewish youth from Crown Heights and a couple of toughs from a neighboring Italian (?) neighborhood, in which the Jewish kid was beaten to death. I recall that the cause of the beating was purely ethnic animus rather than a crime of robbery or something like that, and in a city which at the time had a pretty large number of murders, this one stood out for its Democrat Steno Pool (AKA “the media”) coverage.
Again, I may not be remembering this correctly, and I may in fact have it backwards.....that it was Jewish kids who beat an Italian (or black, or whatever) kid to death. In any case, it was a high profile story at the time, and it involved someone from Crown Heights.
In re. Jews and guns, anyone remember Bernard Goetz?
So right there, you have a case of a Jewish man using a gun in self-defense, leading to the national movement which ended with the passage of CHL in Texas 11 years later.On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot four alleged muggers[1][2][3][4] on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan. He fired five shots, seriously wounding all four men.
Goetz surrendered to police nine days after the shooting and was eventually charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and several firearms offenses. A jury found him not guilty of all charges except for one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm, for which he served eight months of a one-year sentence. In 1996, one of the shot men, Darrel Cabey, who had been left paraplegic and brain damaged as a result of his injuries, obtained a civil judgment of $43 million against Goetz.[5]
- 1984 New York City Subway shooting
Location: New York City, United States
Date: December 22, 1984
Attack type: Self-defense
Weapons: Smith & Wesson Model 38
Non-fatal injuries: 4
Perpetrator: Bernhard Goetz
The incident sparked a nationwide debate on race and crime in major cities, the legal limits of self-defense, and the extent to which the citizenry could rely on the police to secure their safety.[3] Goetz, dubbed the "Subway Vigilante" by New York City's press, came to symbolize New Yorkers' frustrations with the high crime rates of the 1980s. He was both praised and vilified in the media and public opinion. The incident has also been cited as a contributing factor to the groundswell movement against urban crime and disorder,[6] and the successful National Rifle Association campaigns to loosen restrictions on the concealed carrying of firearms.[7]
Talk about 6 degrees of separation.....
Edited to add.....
As a practical matter, what rotor says is true.rotor wrote:To be realistic though, even if one could get a LTC in NYC, where would one ever go to practice? It would be a nightmare for the average citizen to find a place to actually fire their weapon. I doubt that a bunch of ranges would open up. In Texas it is easy but in NYC? It's almost impossible to park a car let alone shoot a gun.