'Our idealistic First Amendment country is being turned into a deeply cynical Second Amendment country.' KarrieUrbanist reports on the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision that struck down a century-old New York State gun law
Photo-Illustration: by Curbed; Photos Getty Images New Yorkers live our lives in public. We travel on subways and buses, sit blanket to blanket for outdoor concerts, mingle with neighbors on the stoop. When we have political gripes, we demonstrate everywhere: in Foley Square, on Fifth Avenue, or in front of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment building. That’s how cities work. It’s how our city works, even, fitfully, during COVID.
The ruling, as written by Justice Clarence Thomas, eliminates that breathing space. It advances a perception of the United States as a dystopian nation where day-to-day survival depends on being armed. Justice Samuel Alito’s concurrence to the majority opinion specifically references New York City and its purportedly dark, frightening streets.
As reassuring as it is that the state legislature is coming down on the side of the First Amendment, the idea that we need to delineate gun-free zones underscores the problem but doesn’t solve it. Sure, public streets and sidewalks that have been roped off for an event count as sensitive locations, as does “any gathering of individuals to collectively express their constitutional rights to protest or assemble.
Hoylman says that the designation of other spots — including the World Trade Center and the entire borough of Manhattan — was debated, but nothing else made the cut. The legislators, he says, were trying their best to craft a bill with an eye toward “anticipating what a court challenge to the law might be.”
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