# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/81 "2022-07-05T00:02:30Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > It’s bad enough to not admit that none of this materialized Have you watched the news lately? ---
**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 5, 2022, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/82 "2022-07-05T00:03:19Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > As you said, a full analysis of Belleisles is beyond the scope of a message board. But I do wonder about several things. Obviously laws against negroes possessing firearms are hardly endorsements of gun control And the laws in Maryland prohibiting Catholics from possessing firearms? Or the laws prohibiting indentured servants from owning them? Or the fact many militia statutes tried to encourage specifically white male _property owners_ owning guns? That to me is actually a decent amount of evidence that, with obvious variances in time and place, the 18th century saw several instances where the general right to own guns was understood to exist within a framework in which the State could significantly restrict that right based on who you were and what you were about. > [@Lumpy](#): > > This is a rather different proposition from modern gun “control”, which is more or less an effort to try to have the fewest possible number of armed people, with an ideal number of zero. And yet that is a pretty politically laden characterization of gun control. People exist on a spectrum–you have pkbites who erroneously believes that the constitution enshrined a common right to unrestricted, unregulated gun ownership, in which the government can impose no regulation on anything relating to guns. On the other side you have Michael Bloomberg types who probably would like to genuinely see private gun ownership reduced to zero. But that excludes a pretty big middle. Lots of gun control laws are not intended to reduce gun ownership to zero. You’re painting a highly politicized argument that is popular among the crowd of far right gun nuts, but has little relationship to the mainstream position on guns in most of the country for most of our history. > [@DrDeth](#): > > It is data. This quote is a misquote, the actual quote is _The plural of anecdote is data_ I’m not quoting someone, I’m saying that as a matter of fact, plural anecdotes are not the same as data. Someone who believes that has a poor understanding of what data is. > [@DrDeth](#): > > You need to reread the thread title, this time for comprehension. 😛 Again, you need to reread, I won’t follow up on this again. My statement made sense as a response to your statement, and you then clearly missed the point. I don’t play games with people who can’t understand thread flow and discussion flow because it results in tedious rehashing. Again–I will not respond on this point further, you had your chance. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, true, which is why we have the Bill of Rights. Which was not understood to apply to State laws whatsoever. This is very basic civics, if you think it was understood that the 1791 bill of rights was a restriction on _State laws_ you simply are not educated on the matter and need to fix that. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/83 "2022-07-05T00:04:19Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Because it sounds like you are in the never carry camp unless I am misunderstanding your post. Maybe you did misunderstand - I’m not sure how you interpret the following as “never carry” and different from the diamond merchant/retailer/armored car driver who carries while working and doesn’t carry when they aren’t working. > [@doreen](#): > > I carried for years as a peace officer in NYC. I was required to carry on duty most of the time\* and I did - but I almost never carried off-duty, although I was allowed to. ---
**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 5, 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/967351/84 "2022-07-05T00:05:09Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@pkbites](#): > > > > It’s bad enough to not admit that none of this materialized > > Have you watched the news lately? And those were people with CCW licenses committing those acts? ---
**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 5, 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/967351/85 "2022-07-05T00:05:19Z")
Let’s be realistic, as a LEO who is admittedly obsessed with guns and constantly afraid of needing to defend yourself, you are far more likely to shoot an innocent black person while carrying than you are to defend yourself. ---
**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 5, 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/967351/86 "2022-07-05T00:10:08Z")
Yeah, as I’ve done that so many times over the past 41 years. Do you ever remain civil in these discussions? ---
**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 5, 2022, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/87 "2022-07-05T00:11:20Z")
I’m simply talking probabilities, your odds of being attacked on the street are very low, and as a LEO your odds of murdering a minority are much higher than for an ordinary person. ---
**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 5, 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/967351/88 "2022-07-05T00:14:21Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’m not quoting someone, I’m saying that as a matter of fact, plural anecdotes are not the same as data. Someone who believes that has a poor understanding of what data is. Yeah, we had a whole thread on that, and you are wrong. Speaking as a data expert, plural anecdotes are unambiguously data. They are usually bad data for most purposes, but they are data. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’m simply talking probabilities, your odds of being attacked on the street are very low, Your odds of being attacked on the NYC subway, which is pretty much always full of witnesses, are even lower. And the odds that you’ll kill some random bystander if you fire a gun are pretty high. The NYC subway is not a place where guns have any positive value. The only legitimate reason to let people carry them on the subway is transportation, so they will have the gun when they get off the subway. On the subway, every gun is, at best, an accident waiting to happen, kept securely out of the way. ---
**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 5, 2022, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/89 "2022-07-05T00:15:44Z")
Moderating That being said > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > as a LEO your odds of murdering a minority are much higher than for an ordinary person. Sounds a lot like a personal attack. It’s at least awfully close to a personal attack. This is IMHO. Please act respectfully towards other posters. ---
**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 5, 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/967351/90 "2022-07-05T00:17:06Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yeah, we had a whole thread on that, and you are wrong. Speaking as a data expert, plural anecdotes are unambiguously data. They are usually bad data for most purposes, but they are data. By definition an “anecdote” is an intrinsically unverifiable and often erroneous retelling, it is not the case that you can produce good data from lots of anecdotes. That is why when researchers attempt to produce a high quality dataset they have controls on how the information is sourced. Random accounts of people’s plural “remembrances” don’t count–that’s how we end up with a large segment of the population thinking that the comedian Sinbad starred in a movie called “Shazaam” in the 1990s. ---
**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 5, 2022, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/91 "2022-07-05T00:22:34Z")
Whoa, slow down. I was not stating a universal truth. I said **some**. It was true in NYC when I talked with LEOs there some years back. ---
**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 5, 2022, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/92 "2022-07-05T00:25:55Z")
How many years back? I had taken some drug interdiction courses years back before 2007 that was taught by some NYPD detectives. We had a long conversation about carrying off duty and none of them said anything about that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/93 "2022-07-05T01:03:37Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Why? Someone won’t try to rob or kill you on your days off? How would you ever know that? To quote Percy Garris(and no, I am not insulting you) "…_.Nobody is going to rob us going down the mountain. We have got no money going down the mountain. When we have got the money, on the way back, then you can sweat."_ In other words, IF you are a target just because you carry valuables, then that is when they will rob you. Now sure, if there is some other reason, like that battered wife who has escaped her dangerous ex-husband, then she might carry it all the time. > [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > . It’s not that none of those people are criminals, but subway crimes are almost always either stealthy ( like pickpocketing) or grab and run, ( like purse snatching ). Then, there is no reason for them to pull out a gun on the subway. But later, bringing the money “on the way back” (as Percy says), then the CCW holder may need their weapon. And if he/she/them can not get to work, by using mass transit, then what happens? I don’t think people are gonna carry the gun just to ride the subway. > [@doreen](#): > > Dr Deth was specifically speaking about the diamond merchant or the retailer who brings large sums of cash to the bank not needing to carry on their days off. I’m not sure exactly how that’s different from me not carrying on my time off or from the armored car driver not carrying when off-duty. Right. But sure, some people might need to carry all the time. > [@Babale](#): > > Have you watched the news lately? A CCW holder shot someone on the NYC subway? 🙄Cite please. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > …you simply are not educated on the matter and need to fix that. Stop the rude snark. I will no longer debate with you. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yeah, we had a whole thread on that, and you are wrong. Speaking as a data expert, plural anecdotes are unambiguously data. They are usually bad data for most purposes, but they are data. I would say _“often”_ not “_usually_” but yeah. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > The NYC subway is not a place where guns have any positive value. The only legitimate reason to let people carry them on the subway is transportation, so they will have the gun when they get off the subway. Right. People aren’t gonna carry a gun _just_ to ride the subway. But the rule is just an illegal end run around the Ruling and it will be knocked down, in (dare I say it?) a _New York minute._ 😛 ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/94 "2022-07-05T01:05:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Stop the rude snark. I will no longer debate with you. It’s not a debate–the claim that the Bill of Rights applied to State laws in 1791 is inherently non-factual. ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/95 "2022-07-05T01:13:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > > [@Lumpy](#): > > > > As you said, a full analysis of Belleisles is beyond the scope of a message board. But I do wonder about several things. Obviously laws against negroes possessing firearms are hardly endorsements of gun control > > And the laws in Maryland prohibiting Catholics from possessing firearms? Or the laws prohibiting indentured servants from owning them? Or the fact many militia statutes tried to encourage specifically white male _property owners_ owning guns? That to me is actually a decent amount of evidence that, with obvious variances in time and place, the 18th century saw several instances where the general right to own guns was understood to exist within a framework in which the State could significantly restrict that right based on who you were and what you were about. To me that seems more to do with rights in general than gun rights specifically. In the 18th century our forebears were still progressing away from a medieval feudal view of society that they’d inherited, in which only those at the top were considered Citizens: the white, male, landowning soldier/warriors who were the people who counted. Everyone else- women, children, tenants, servants and slaves- were mere dependents, ancillaries of the people who actually upheld society as they knew it. It is why by 18th century standards the values espoused by the Founders, however tentative and incomplete, were radically liberal. They fought a war to be free of a system in which only the hereditary nobility sitting in Parliament back in Britain were considered to have full political rights. One would hardly venture to say today that denying citizens the right to vote is perfectly okay because it was allowed in colonial times; it wasn’t, it was that the definition of “citizen” was rather narrower at the time. From that same time we have ample evidence that denying that narrow segment of society the right (and they did consider it a right, not a privilege) to possess firearms led to a general outcry. It was in fact the fear that “the general right to own guns was understood to exist within a framework in which the State could significantly restrict that right based on who you were and what you were about” that led to the Second Amendment. Since the Constitution granted the federal government co-authority with the states over summoning the populace to arms, proponents of a Bill of Rights wanted an ironclad guarantee that this authority would not be leveraged to disarm the general population. ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/96 "2022-07-05T01:34:33Z")
Well, gee, why do you want to know, exactly? ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/97 "2022-07-05T01:36:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@pkbites](#): > > > > Why? Someone won’t try to rob or kill you on your days off? How would you ever know that? > > To quote Percy Garris(and no, I am not insulting you) "…_.Nobody is going to rob us going down the mountain. We have got no money going down the mountain. When we have got the money, on the way back, then you can sweat."_ In other words, IF you are a target just because you carry valuables, then that is when they will rob you. Sorry, but this is a bunch of gobbledygook. People with not much of anything get held up all the time. Then there is the psycho that goes into a grocery store not to rob but simply to kill. Trying to guess when you may or may not need to defend yourself is a fools errand. ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/98 "2022-07-05T01:37:07Z")
And living in fear is a coward’s life, not one for me. ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/99 "2022-07-05T01:37:13Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Well, gee, why do you want to know, exactly? I was just wondering if it pre or post dated HR218. which was in 2007. ---
**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 5, 2022, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-people-were-armed-concealed-firearms-on-a-nyc-subway-i-would-not-feel-safe-would-you/967351/100 "2022-07-05T01:38:13Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > And living in fear is a coward’s life, not one for me. Being prepared is not living in fear. Do you wear safety belts? Have smoke alarms in your home? [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=4) [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=6)