New York City Food Vendor Shot in ‘Gun-Free Zone’

Another day, another “gun-free zone” failure.

This time the setting was Times Square, which was one of those places the city declared “sensitive” and off-limits to lawful gun owners in the wake of the Bruen decision in 2022. 

Police in New York City are investigating a shooting in Times Square, a gun-free zone, on Wednesday morning that left one man injured.

Police say they received a 911 call for shots fired at 4:49 a.m. at 47th and 7th Ave. A 29-year-old male was shot in the right arm, and he was transported to Bellevue Hospital conscious and alert. Police have yet to establish a motive for the incident.

The shooting took place after a group of young people got into an argument with several food vendors. The group then disengaged and crossed the street before one of their number turned and fired multiple times at the vendors, striking the 29-year-old in the arm. 

Police apprehended three suspects in the nearby subway.

Incidentally, the subway is also a “gun-free zone” under New York law, which further demonstrates the utter uselessness of prohibiting lawful gun owners from carrying in these spaces. 

So far police haven’t identified any of the suspects, and if they’re juveniles we may never know their names or even the disposition of their cases. What we do know is that once again Times Square has been proven to be “gun-free” in name only. Last February a 15-year-old allegedly shot a tourist and fired at a police officer who was trying to apprehend him. The teen not only allegedly violated the city’s prohibition on firearms in Times Square, but a host of other New York gun laws as well. 

[P]olice identified the suspect as a resident of a migrant shelter in Manhattan who arrived in New York from Venezuela late last year. He is also considered a suspect in an armed robbery in the Bronx and a separate shooting in Times Square last month, police said. 

Police said the shooter, dressed in all white, and two teenage classmates were shoplifting a jacket from the store shortly after 7 p.m. when they were confronted by a security guard who asked to see a receipt. 

When the trio couldn’t produce one, the guard took back the merchandise. That’s when the teenager allegedly pulled out a .45 caliber handgun and fired at her. The bullet missed the worker but grazed a 38-year-old tourist in line to buy a pair of sneakers.

If you want to legally possess and carry a pistol in New York City you’ll have to fork over hundreds of dollars in fees, go through 18 hours of training, and wait for months if not years for your application to be approved… and even then you’ll be barred from bringing your gun with you in a host of locations across the five boroughs. 

For those who don’t care about following the law, however, getting and carrying a gun in New York City is so simple even an illegal immigrant teenager can do it. And thanks to the state’s ridiculously soft policies on juvenile crime, many young offenders rightfully believe they can break the law and suffer few, if any, consequences for their criminal activity. 

Times Square is hardly “gun-free” in practice, but the city and state will never voluntarily allow folks to exercise their right to bear arms in that space. It’s going to take intervention by the Supreme Court to set things right, and with their seeming reluctance to take up any “sensitive places” lawsuits, I suspect that criminals are going to continue to have the upper hand in midtown Manhattan for the foreseeable future.