New York is one of several blue states that have quickly added more firearms restrictions since the Supreme Court said citizens have a right to carry.
PEEKSKILL, N.Y.—The Second Amendment debate is academic for many Americans—speculation with friends over what-if scenarios and the concept of God-given rights.
On Oct. 7, those rights hit home for Adam Edelman (not his real name) and others in New York’s Jewish community, who were horrified by the Hamas terror attack on Israel and the massacre of 1,200 people.
Then, days later, while he was sitting in his small business outside New York City, pro-Palestinian protestors were marching just miles from his office.
He began recalling his grandparents’, aunts’, and uncles’ accounts of the beginning of the Holocaust. And how he could protect his family in a state that restricts his Second Amendment rights.
Mr. Edelman spoke with The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity out of concern for his family’s safety.
“Well, look, the parallels are there. They’re openly screaming ‘Death to Jews,’” Mr. Edelman told The Epoch Times. “If they had a chance, they would eradicate all the Jews. They would do it.”
Gun rights activists hailed the June 23, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen that citizens have a constitutional right to carry a gun in public for self-defense.
They see the decision as the bookend to the 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Since Bruen, 27 states have adopted so-called constitutional carry laws, which allow law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm without a license.
But not all legislatures celebrated.
In many blue states, where strict gun laws are the norm, legislatures took the opposite path. California, Oregon, Illinois, Washington, and other states implemented more firearms restrictions or refitted existing laws to the new standard.
Washington, Illinois, and Delaware joined the seven other states that banned certain types of semi-automatic rifles, so-called assault weapons.
Other states added prohibitions on where guns could be legally carried, expanding their lists of “sensitive places.”
The centerpiece of New York’s reaction to Bruen was the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), announced on Aug. 31, 2022.
The CCIA increased the training required for a license, expanded the number of places where concealed carry was prohibited, made in-person interviews and a review of an applicant’s social media accounts mandatory, and reduced the license recertification period from five years to three years.
The state set up a website to explain the new law.
