Throughout the nation, some places are gun-free zones. Different states and communities have different ideas of what kind of locations meet the criteria for what the Supreme Court referred to as “sensitive places,” but they all have them.
The more animosity toward the right to keep and bear arms, the more places seem to make the cut. I’d say it’s funny how that works out, but it’s really not.
In New York City, the subway system is one such location. The city has a major violent crime problem and the subways are one place where it’s really impossible to escape a threat. You can move in one of two directions, but that’s limited to the extent of the train itself, at least until you get to a stop. But you can’t have the means to defend yourself there.
It doesn’t stop the criminals, even if they don’t have guns, as a recent story illustrates.
A Brooklyn straphanger who had his face randomly sliced open by a stranger on his way to work is angry to be yet another random victim on the rails.
Earlton Massenburg Jr. recounted the horror to The Post, recalling how he’d only nodded off for a few minutes last Sunday when he was jolted awake by the searing pain of his face being sliced open.
“When I opened my eyes, I saw this dude and he had something sharp in his hand and it was like he had just finished cutting me,” Massenburg, 31, said of the bloody 9 a.m. ambush on a 4 train on his way to work on Staten Island as an Amazon deliveryman.
“I wasn’t freaking out, I wasn’t panicking — I was angry,” he said. “I think that’s crazy considering we have more cameras and police around and all of that.”
Now, when you hear about crime on the New York City subway, it’s usually something about guns. The city spent millions on an AI detection system that was supposed to keep guns off the subway. It didn’t.
They put armed National Guard troops on subway platforms to respond to violent crime. They did everything and made everything about the guns, about keeping guns off of the subway.
But this bad guy committed a brutal assault and didn’t need a gun at all. Massenburg says it look like a razor or something similar, but what we know is that it wasn’t a gun.
So that’s a win, right?
Hardly.
First, the assault still happened. While it’s not fatal, it easily could have been had the attacker wished for it to be. Massenburg was asleep when it happened–something I doubt he’ll allow to happen again–and so the attacker could have easily opted to cut the throat instead. Thankfully, he didn’t.
The city’s prohibition on guns on the subway hasn’t done all that much, and why would it? Criminals don’t follow the law and never have. They don’t care about gun-free zones like the trains and platforms that are so vital to the city’s economy.
But while there’s no indication whether Massenburg would have been armed if he could have been or not–and I’m leaning toward not, to be fair, since he was headed to work at Amazon–the fact that there was no way he could have been certainly didn’t help dissuade his attacker from launching such a brazen and senseless assault on someone.
And even if Massenburg hadn’t been armed, someone else might have been.
Disarming your law-abiding population doesn’t create peace and tranquility for the masses. It creates a better hunting ground for the most vile among us. Had people been lawfully armed on that subway train that day, the attack may well have never happened in the first place. If it did, it may have ended quite differently.
Guns aren’t the problem. People are the problem, and a gun isn’t necessary for them to be a problem, as we can see here.
Or is New York going to pass razor control?
Read the full article here
