Over the past four decades, most American states chose to let everyday citizens carry concealed weapons. Indeed, about half of states no longer even require a permit to pack heat.
New York took a different path — but is being dragged into a more lenient gun-carrying regime by the courts. Exactly how far it will be dragged is an open question. But there are two reasons for New Yorkers not to panic.
First, while parts of the state’s strict new law will likely be struck down, New York will retain ample discretion to make permits hard to get — including fees, training requirements and restrictions on where guns may be carried. And second, even in states that liberalized their gun-carrying laws with gusto, the effects on crime are small enough that, despite decades of research, they remain hard to measure reliably.
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Robert VerBruggen is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here. Based on a recent MI issue brief.
This piece originally appeared in The Washington Free Beacon