# If people were armed (concealed firearms) on a NYC subway, I would not feel safe would you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351 "2022-07-03T20:05:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/41 "2022-07-04T00:05:04Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > > [@pkbites](#): > > > > Like heck. In the 90’s and beyond when more and more states adopted concealed carry laws there were massive cries about how there would be blood in the streets, a return to the wild west, people gunning down others over fender benders and parking disputes, cops getting shot by permit holders. It’s bad enough to not admit that none of this materialized, but to deny such claims were made is even more absurd. > > Do you have a cite for this? Sounds pretty hyperbolic. I remember it well too; MN became a Shall Issue state in 2003-2004 (there was something about the first version of the carry law didn’t meet a technicality so they had to pass it again). What astonished me and has colored my view of gun control advocates ever since is the sheer contempt voiced by opponents of Shall Issue for the intelligence and responsibility of the average citizen. To hear them tell it, the public shouldn’t be allowed to run with scissors let alone own or carry guns. People who apparently believe that _The Simpsons_ is a documentary of modern America (presumably with themselves as the exception, since they’re smart enough to recognize this). It sounds like Alt-Right paranoia, but I have to wonder if the gun control movement is part and parcel with the infantilization of American society and the abandonment of any notion of personal responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/42 "2022-07-04T00:05:06Z")
ISTM that of course the more activistic voices will of course be more heard and their statements will imprint in people’s consciousness if they touch a nerve. Even if not majoritarian. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/43 "2022-07-04T00:07:29Z")
Right, no one outside of far right gun activists were obsessing over things like that mentioned in @Crafter_Man’s post, I would wager virtually no one in the State of Ohio was aware any of that dialogue was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/44 "2022-07-04T00:07:42Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The plural of anecdote isn’t data. Despite pkbites seeming to get really upset and confused, it isn’t actually impossible to find news articles etc from the 1990s. It’s quite difficult to find op-eds on this subject from 30 years or more ago, and nearly impossible to dredge up letters to the editor from the period. I see that you’re now conceding the existence of “a few scattered op-eds by hysterical people”, so maybe you’ve decided that flatly denying the memories of multiple posters isn’t the way to go. To get back to the subject of the OP, I wouldn’t feel safer on New York subways with more people authorized to carry concealed weapons. I wouldn’t feel less safe either. Best to keep a good distance from the edge of the platforms, as [nobody needs a weapon to shove you onto the tracks](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-shoved-nyc-subway-tracks-latest-attack-nations-largest-transit-sys-rcna13270). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/45 "2022-07-04T00:09:57Z")
In the NY Subway the need for situational awareness has been a reality for more than a lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/46 "2022-07-04T00:10:28Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > It’s quite difficult to find op-eds on this subject from 30 years or more ago, and nearly impossible to dredge up letters to the editor from the period. I see that you’re now conceding the existence of “a few scattered op-eds by hysterical people”, so maybe you’ve decided that flatly denying the memories of multiple posters isn’t the way to go. I mean no, almost every significant newspaper has searchable archives (some may require you to pay for it.) And sorry but no, a few people who are obsessed with “gun rights” “remembering” the evil liberals foaming at the mouth, and me being expected to simply accept their “memory” as an unbiased gauge as to what America in the 90s was like is not going to fucking happen. I was here in the 90s, I even was involved in Republican politics in the 90s, the idea that there was a lot of gun control people who were dominating public attention just isn’t accurate. If anything the NRA and advocates of repealing the AWB were the ones getting more prominent attention. Gun control has largely been in retreat in the United States since the mid-1980s, and has never had anywhere near the PR prominence as the “guns for everyone” movement that has dominated discourse on the topic ever since. The people who define their entire existence based on guns _obsess_ over anyone who is anti-gun, but that massively overstates how important anti-gun voices are, and how much prominence they had, or how common they were. If the claim was that gun control histrionics dominated the discussion _in the 1970s_, I would not contest it–that is mostly accurate, and the 70s is when many of the more restrictive gun laws started to become common. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/47 "2022-07-04T00:12:05Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > > [@pkbites](#): > > > > But there were significant numbers of voices, especially coming from the media, > > That ‘significant number’ may be _significantly_ small. > > . But when part of that number has newspapers, magazines, and television stations the impact of their wrongness can be significant. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/48 "2022-07-04T00:12:31Z")
Correct, and that is how the NRA has largely poisoned Americans into thinking they should be allowed to have guns whenever and wherever they want. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/49 "2022-07-04T00:14:46Z")
Trying to bring it back to the OP a bit … Particularly absent training and permit requirements (as well as background checks), how can we expect ‘constitutional carry’ people to know what to do _in order not_ to become the next Johnny Hurley ? > “Good Samaritan” Johnny Hurley died needlessly last year because nearby Arvada police officers failed to confront a gunman in Olde Town Arvada, failed to verify that Hurley was a threat and an officer failed to announce himself as a police officer before shooting Hurley from behind, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday by Hurley’s mother. He was a good guy with a gun in [**this story**](https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/22/johnny-hurley-arvada-police-lawsuit/). What happens when the ‘good guy with the gun’ is on a NYC subway car, but LEOs don’t have good information when they reach the scene about who’s who, and have to make split-second decisions (as they so often do) ? CCW classes tend to give you _some_ information about what you should and should not do if you have to (brandish or) discharge your weapon. I’m not a shrill, Chicken Little type, but I do see this kind of problem escalating, not decreasing, as more people decide to ‘constitutionally carry.’ ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/50 "2022-07-04T00:17:55Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > What happens when the ‘good guy with the gun’ is on a NYC subway car, but LEOs don’t have good information when they reach the scene about who’s who, and have to make split-second decisions (as they so often do) ? He gets shot, as would other people like him. Hurley was not a good guy with a gun. He was a dumb person with a gun who got himself killed. He chose that path and we should mot mourn it. I frankly celebrate it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/51 "2022-07-04T00:18:03Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I heard a lot of the same over-the-top ranting that pkbites did. [Recent sample](https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/op-ed-governor-abbott-needs-to-get-his-priorities-straight/article#ixzz7Y1Bx9uCQ) (regarding Texas’ adopting a bill to allow concealed carry without a license): > > “I just cannot imagine what the streets of Dallas or Laredo are going to be like when gun-totting (sic) idiots start opening fire on people they “perceive” as doing something unlawful, like walking their dog in the wrong neighborhood, or God forbid, being the wrong color.” You forgot “Wild West Pimp Style” carry: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/-IgJLaJW6X4/maxresdefault.jpg "Texas Democrat Warns of "Wild West Pimp Style" Gun Carry") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IgJLaJW6X4) (Seriously, when one’s opponents make sincere remarks funnier than anything you could denigrate them with… 😆) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/52 "2022-07-04T00:50:49Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > And sorry but no, a few people who are obsessed with “gun rights” “remembering” the evil liberals foaming at the mouth, and me being expected to simply accept their “memory” as an unbiased gauge as to what America in the 90s was like is not going to fucking happen. I stated just a few posts ago that “I do not support concealed carry without a permit and meaningful training. Applicants should preferably have a good reason for needing a permit, modeled on need for safety and security.” So lumping me in as “obsessed with “gun rights”” doesn’t fly, and suggests as a minimum that your own “memory” is distinctly flawed. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/53 "2022-07-04T00:56:50Z")
Weird I don’t see that I said your name anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/54 "2022-07-04T01:28:38Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > You sure it wasn’t a “Dodge City mentality”? Yes, I meant Dodge City. 🤦 I guess it supposed to invoke a lawless old west meme. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/55 "2022-07-04T01:30:44Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Correct, and that is how the NRA has largely poisoned Americans into thinking they should be allowed to have guns whenever and wherever they want. It was the founding fathers who planted that idea first. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/56 "2022-07-04T02:07:24Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > It’s been 10 years since I’ve been on a NYC subway. But when I was I felt safer being armed because I knew there were probably some criminally armed people riding as well. I don’t carry because I’m worried about a law abiding person carrying I dunno, I’ve seen fights break out on the subway, and IMHO, it was a good thing that no one was carrying. A gun added to that mix would have made everything exponentially worse. > [@msmith537](#): > > I’m curious how many respondents live, work, or otherwise spend significant amount of time in NYC. > > In 20+ years of living and working in and around NYC I can’t say I’ve ever felt particularly “unsafe” (at least not compared to anywhere else I’ve been). Nor can I recall a situation where I’ve been like “man I really wish I had a gun with me”. > > Unless you live in a high crime neighborhood, it strikes me as a little weird to be so worried about crime that you feel like you need to carry a gun around all the time. I lived in NYC for 7 years, and took the subway every day. I was never in a situation where i thought I’d be better off of i had a gun with me. But i suppose even if NY is forced to allow more people to get gun permits, most of them will have the common sense not to carry them around, and even if they lack that, most of them will have the good sense to avoid shooting a gun on the subway. It will make the subway less safe, but probably not a lot less safe. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/57 "2022-07-04T02:39:33Z")
Not at all. In the time of the Founding Fathers many towns had regulations on carrying firearms within town borders and on certain days and at certain times. As is typical, conservative “originalists” often simply ignore the actual original history, which in our country is of localities passing frankly draconian firearm regulations from the earliest eras of American history. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/58 "2022-07-04T02:48:08Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > It was the founding fathers who planted that idea first. Not really; as has been discussed in many threads, the modern interpretation of the Second Amendment as ensuring an individual’s right “to have guns whenever and wherever they want” is comparatively recent in American jurisprudence. [The founders intended the Second Amendment primarily as a safeguard against the establishment of a standing army controlled by a central government.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/what-the-second-amendment-really-meant-to-the-founders/) > [@](#): > > Read the debates about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the militia’s importance leaps off the page. Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, called a well-regulated militia “the most natural defense of a free country.” His anti-Federalist critics agreed with the need for a citizens’ militia, writing that “a well regulated militia, composed of the Yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered as the bulwark of a free people.” […] > > […] both sides were devoted to the idea that all citizens should be part-time soldiers, because both sides believed a standing army was an existential threat to the ideas of the revolution. […] > > It’s not that the Founding Fathers were against the idea of an individual right to bear arms. It just was not an issue that concerned them. > > Again, the militia was all important: The men writing the Bill of Rights wanted every citizen to be in the militia, and they wanted everyone in the militia to be armed. If someone was prohibited from participating in the militia, the leaders of the Founders’ generation would _not_ have wanted them to have access to weapons. In fact, the 18th-century regulations that required citizens to participate in the militia also prohibited blacks and Indians from participating as arms-bearing members. […] > > White Americans were armed so that they could maintain control over nonwhites. Nonwhites were disarmed so that they would not pose a threat to white control of American society.The restrictions underscore a key point about militias: They were more effective as domestic police forces than they were on the battlefield against enemy nations; and they were most effective when they were policing the African American population. […] > > Anyone wishing for a return to an original meaning of the Second Amendment — where no one was a professional soldier, but everyone would be required to participate in the militia — would find themselves far from the political mainstream. [ETA: bah, ninja’d by Martin\_Hyde bc I went out for cites. As USUAL. 😠 😜] ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/59 "2022-07-04T02:57:03Z")
That isn’t a CCW. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2022, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/60 "2022-07-04T03:16:31Z")
I think that the average Founding Father would agree there is _an individual right to firearms_, why? Because they were all born thinking of themselves as Englishmen to some degree–while they also viewed themselves as Virginians, Pennsylvanians etc, they still firmly viewed themselves as Englishmen–their rhetoric frequent referenced, in public and private writings “the rights of Englishmen.” And while in America we often think of the Bill of Rights as something that burst forth out of American exceptionalism, we learn even in basic history classes that a direct predecessor was the _English_ Bill of Rights, that actually has within it an _individual right to bear arms_ (note that like most of the English Bill of Rights, that section has long been overridden by later acts of Parliament), but back in the 18th century it was still fairly understood that an innate right of Englishmen was to bear arms (this was frankly fairly understood even in England until the Pistols Act, of the early 20th century, one of the first meaningful firearms laws in England.) **But** , the Founding Fathers did not view the Federal constitution as a protector of rights, it was broadly and completely understood that the representative governments of the 13 States were responsible for protecting basic rights. The Federal government, very limited and only possessing enumerated powers, simply needed to be constrained from potentially passing legislation harmful to rights as they relate to Federal laws (which at the time had a limited scope compared to today.) So while the Founding Fathers would be shocked by some elements of the modern discussion about guns, they would be far more shocked that we were concerning ourselves with the Federal right. Both the decision of MIller and the National Firearms Act, as well as decisions like Heller would some alien and strange to them, as they are all predicated on a Federal involvement in ordinary daily life that was unthinkable in their time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351.md?page=4)