For decades, NRA-ILA has pointed out that gun control advocates are disingenuous when it comes to public safety. Anti-gun politicians and the agencies and jurisdictions they control seek to encumber and disarm law-abiding individuals in any manner possible, while at the same time failing to adequately protect the public from dangerous criminals.
Consider the following cases - one from New York City and another from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris’s gun control role model, Australia.
On July 20, the New York Post ran a story titled, “Off-duty CBP officer shot in face during robbery at NYC park by suspect ID’d as illegal migrant, career criminal – who got freed after every bust.”
According to the item, an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent and a female companion were in Manhattan’s Fort Washington Park when two men on a moped attempt to rob them. An altercation ensued, resulting in the federal officer being shot. The federal agent was able to return fire with his own weapon, striking the alleged gunman three times.
According to the Associated Press, the CBP officer is recovering. Thanks to the officer’s heroic actions, the alleged shooter was apprehended seeking treatment for his wounds at a local hospital shortly after the incident. An alleged accomplice was captured by police a day later.
Being a federal agent, the CBP officer was fortunate to be carrying a gun to defend himself and his companion. Of course, New York City makes it nearly impossible for other law-abiding citizens to exercise their Right-to-Carry.
Possession of a handgun in New York City requires a license. Following its landmark loss at the U.S. Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which made clear law-abiding citizens have a right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense, New York City continues to thumb its nose at the Second Amendment.
In the wake of their Supreme Court defeat, New York hastily enacted the ill-named “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.” The updated carry regime still required applicants to convince government officials of their “good moral character” to secure a license. The NYPD License Division employs investigators to conduct what appear to be essentially open-ended background checks on prospective licensees.
The process for obtaining a carry permit in NYC is so convoluted, in fact, that a February 2025 article from Spectrum News NY1 reported, “Hiring a lawyer has become an unofficial part of the process in New York.”
To make matters worse, even if a citizen were able to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to obtain a carry permit in NYC, they wouldn’t be allowed to carry where the attack on the CBP agent occurred (Fort Washington Park).
New York’s Bruen retaliation legislation sought to undo the Court’s ruling by banning firearms in numerous places under the guise that they are “sensitive locations.”
NY PENAL § 265.01-e, “Criminal possession of a firearm, rifle or shotgun in a sensitive location,” provides,
1. A person is guilty of criminal possession of a firearm, rifle or shotgun in a sensitive location when such person possesses a firearm, rifle or shotgun in or upon a sensitive location, and such person knows or reasonably should know such location is a sensitive location.
2. For the purposes of this section, a sensitive location shall mean:
…
(d) libraries, public playgrounds, public parks, and zoos,
Somehow this foolish statute didn’t manage to dissuade the alleged assailants.
Labelling Fort Washington Park “sensitive” is absurd. In 2017, the NYPD captain for the 33rd precinct identified the location as a vagrant “hotspot,” calling one portion of the park “Needle Park.”
New York politicians have gone to great lengths to restrict the right of law-abiding residents to defend themselves from violent crime. If only these officials treated actual violent criminals with such severity.
According to the New York Post, the CBP agent’s alleged attacker was “a 21-year-old Dominican national with a lengthy rap sheet in New York,,,— but he was let go each time he was busted, despite having a deportation order.”
The paper went on to detail the jurisdiction’s shocking disregard for public safety,
At the time of his arrest for the shooting, [the suspect] was wanted on kidnapping and weapons charges out of Massachusetts related to a robbery at a pawn shop, sources said.
He also had at least four arrests in New York City — where he was let go without bail each time, according to the sources.
[the suspect] was nabbed twice just days apart August 2024 for allegedly assaulting a pregnant woman and threatening to kill another migrant with a machete.
Then he was arrested for violating an order of protection in November 2024, and had another bench warrant out for his arrest issued in January, sources said.
Explaining how this could occur, the paper noted, “None of those charges were bail eligible, and New York City’s sanctuary laws mean that he was not handed over to ICE, despite a deportation order.”
The shooting suspect’s alleged accomplice has a similar police record. A July 21 item from the New York Post reported,
[The suspect] entered the country illegally in 2022 during the Biden administration and was released on parole ahead of his immigration hearing…
He then made it to New York City, where he was cuffed eight times by NYPD after a federal immigration judge ordered his deportation in January 2023 — and was released each time
With U.S. gun control activists often touting Australia as a guide for American disarmament, gun rights supporters might know that things are bad for gun owners in the Land Down Under. The Parliament of Australia has stated, “there is no legal right to gun ownership. Owning and using a firearm is limited in Australia to people who have a genuine reason and self-protection does not constitute a genuine reason to possess, own or use a firearm.” However, even well-informed Americans might not fully appreciate just how far this anti-self-defense mindset has infected the law.
Australia’s Courier Mail recently ran a story with the shocking headline, “Man charged after fighting off home invader with pepper spray.” According to reports, a Mackay, Queensland resident was charged after using pepper spray to repel a person attempting to break into his home.
The magistrate assigned to the case lectured the resident his actions were a “misconceived attempt by you to protect your property,” adding, “Not that that's an excuse. You should know the law and know that these things are prohibited.” The Courier Mail noted that the resident “was placed on a six month $250 good behaviour bond and a conviction was not recorded.”
A social media post from Queensland Member of Parliament Nick Dametto, who is an advocate for self-defense spray, explained, “A Mackay man has been sentenced for using pepper spray on an intruder who was breaking into his home. It is currently illegal to possess pepper spray in Queensland for the purposes of self-defence.”
An archived Queensland Police website called “Dealing with confrontation” explained the sad state of self-defense in the jurisdiction,
The law does not allow you to carry anything that can be described as an offensive weapon. E.g. mace or spray dyes, or items that have been specially adapted, such as a sharpened comb, or knife carried for the purpose of self defence.
A September 2024 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) article noted, “Western Australia is currently the only Australian state or territory where people can carry the non-lethal spray under strict conditions.” However, in June Australia’s Northern Territory greenlit a 12-month trial program starting in September that will allow law-abiding residents to possess self-defense spray.
Queensland residents have good reason to seek the tools of self-defense. In April 2024, ABC ran an article titled, “Violent crime nearly three times worse since 2020, Queensland statisticians find, and it's not youth.”
Gun owners often point out that having access to the means of self-defense is important because the government isn’t perfect and cannot protect citizens in all circumstances. Self-defense is even more necessary in jurisdictions like New York that affirmatively flout the social contract by allowing violent criminals who have repeatedly made themselves known to the government to continue to prey on the innocent. Denying the law-abiding individual’s right to self-defense while condoning a dangerous environment is particularly cruel and oppressive. It’s enough, in fact, for people to question whose side the politicians of these jurisdictions are on when it comes to safety.
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