The Right to Bear Arms. Thinks It Should Be Admitted In New York City

THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.

(N.Y Times article from Aug. 24, 1910, retrieved from the N.Y.T. Archives)

Thinks It Should Be Admitted In New York City.

To the editor of The New York Times:

As it strikes me, " .38 Colt" has scored a bull's-eye on "The Right To Bear Arms." Present regulations with respect to pistol-carrying as a habit in this city are more than sufficient if properly enforced. I say "more than sufficient" advisedly, because the ordinary peaceably inclined citizen cannot now lawfully, even if constitutionally, avail of the protection afforded by a pistol on his person without a red tape process of doubtful issue, while the criminally inclined sets those regulations at defiance, as he does the law generally. Get a pistol he will, despite restrictions on the sale of firearms.

Here was recently instance of an affray in an eat side neighborhood between the police and a gang of "toughs," in which a policeman was shot and seriously wounded while "frisking" one of the "gangsters" for his weapon. Now, suppose you or I, Mr. Editor, had had business in that spot a while before the affray, would either of us, as decently dressed men, have been allowed to pass unmolested? And what chance would either of us have had unarmed and defenseless?

I know that there is a theory in "wild and woolly" communities, where the inhabitants are "quick on the trigger," a "tenderfoot" is safer unarmed, the supposition being that no mean advantage will be taken of an unarmed man. That, however, does not apply to New York, where in certain neighborhoods even police protection seemingly exists in name only. The gangster is a born coward or he wouldn't be a gangster, and he will take all the mean advantage he can get. A defenseless citizen is "meat" to him. But let an apparently defenseless citizen "flash a gun" on him and chances are he and his gang will "beat it" precipitately. The police are at a discount with this element because it is known that their orders are not to draw their revolvers except in extremities.

What we need particularly is a severer court handling of those of known criminal proclivities, and even of those of disorderly tendencies.

There is no necessity for further encroachment upon the American citizen's right to bear arms.

J.W.E.

New York, Aug. 24. 1910.