Like you and me, only better
I’ve touched on this before. To carry a gun in New York City, you have to be rich and connected. Regular Joes can forget about it. Look who’s packing:
Billionaires are going ballistic.
Ronald Lauder has joined trigger-happy tycoons Donald Trump and Seagrams scion Edgar Bronfman Sr. as the richest men in the city packing heat, according to the NYPD’s gun-permit list.
Lauder, the cosmetics heir, and multimillionaire Marvel Comics CEO Isaac Perlmutter are the newest gun-club members licensed to carry a weapon – topping a list that already included “Mean Streets” actors Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, “Scarface” producer Martin Bregman and shock jocks Don Imus and Howard Stern.
These boldfaced names are among more than 38,000 licensed gun owners in the city; the number has steadily declined in recent years as fewer people apply for permits – and fewer are approved.
That’s just the folks who can own them. Those that can carry is a bit more exclusive:
Other gun-toting notables – who have a license to carry as opposed to a permit to keep their weapon only at a home or business – include anti-gun activist Fernando Mateo and Giuliani Partners execs Richard Sheirer and Anthony Carbonetti – an in-law of the notorious booze-peddling Dorrian clan.
Republican Senate majority leader Joe Bruno and music czar Tommy Mottola remain licensed carriers, according to NYPD records through March 17.
Millionaire Winthrop Rockefeller and former TV Anchor John Roland are no longer on the list; the NYPD wouldn’t say why not.
Former Manhattan Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder is also licensed to carry a firearm.
“You will see a lot of judges with [gun] permits, and I’ve also noticed over the years more women applying,” said NYPD License Division Capt. Mike Endall.
Queens DA Richard Brown is the only elected prosecutor in the city with a gun license, but “he has his own security, so he doesn’t walk around carrying a gun,” said spokeswoman Nicole Navas.
Celebrity divorce lawyer Raoul Felder said he has carried a gun since 1961 during his days as a prosecutor.
“A man threatened to kill me, and since he was a murderer I thought it was time to get a gun,” he said. “We live in a very disturbed age. There’s all kinds of sickness.”
Subway vigilante Bernie Goetz’s lawyer, Barry Slotnick, is also strapped.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:29 am
A friend of mine here in MO used to live in upstate NY. He had a concealed carry permit there, and said it was not particularly tough to get one, just a lot of administrative nuisance that took the better part of a year. He was nobody special, just an ordinary working stiff. His permit was good statewide, including NYC, but he was fully aware that he never could have gotten a permit if he had lived in any of the 5 boroughs.
I thought it was interesting that he had moved to NY from MA, where he also had a concealed permit. All of this was within the last 10 years.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Wrangler, I thought state permits were not valid in the city.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:34 am
In “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, we have to get permission from our masters to exercise the most basic right of self defense. That’s backwards–our public officials are the ones who are to get OUR permission while they are on teh job for us!!
March 27th, 2006 at 10:42 am
An upstate permit isn’t good in New York City.
March 27th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
In “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, we have to get permission from our masters to exercise the most basic right of self defense.
Ah well sure if you want to pack in public, are you all saying that anyone should be able to carry a gun legally in public with no restrictions whatsoever?
Home and harth are one thing, I would agree that the laws have run too far in the wrong direction with restrictions on home ownership, but I’m pretty gald that most states at least make you fill out a post card.
March 27th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
The inherent problem is that guys who want to kill you are generally not going to obey the law. So, if you pass laws against carrying weapons, that only stops good, law-abiding people from being armed. Giving a good person a gun won’t suddenly make them “go crazy” no more than giving a person a corvette will make them break the speed limit.
March 27th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
It’s interesting that a District Attorney quote “has his own security”.
Who’s paying for that?
March 27th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
My misunderstanding, or perhaps my friend’s. I thought he told me his permit was good anywhere, including NYC. Thanks for the info. I still will do my best to avoid all of NY.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Rick,
I’m not too averse to gun “permits” for carrying a weapon IF they are “shall issue” like we have here in Tennessee and remain in the hands of the states. That keeps it from being an arbitrary permission by some public official as to whether a law-abiding citizen can exercise their basic right of armed self-defense. Actually if anyone should get permission (delegated authority), it should be public officials while they’re on the job for us.
The name George Mason is in the news now because of the university’s basketball team. George Mason was one of the founding fathers who insisted that the Constitution contain a Bill of Rights. On the issue of bearing weapons, he said, ” I ask, who is the militia? It is the whole people EXCEPT FOR A FEW PUBLIC OFFICIALS” The founders and framers of our Constitution considered an armed citizenry as “necessary to the security of a free state” And as the history of the 20th Century proved, weapons confined to government hands killed vastly more people, in the tens of millions, than common criminals.