New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday she doesn’t need data to make the case that concealed carry permit holders make New York more dangerous.
“Do you have numbers to show that it’s the concealed carry permit holders that are committing crimes?” WRGB news anchor Anne McCloy asked. “Because the lawful gun owner will say that you’re attacking the wrong person, it’s really people that are getting these guns illegally that are causing the violence, not the people going and getting the permit legally and that’s the basis for the whole Supreme Court argument. Do you have the numbers?”
Hochul argued the statistics are irrelevant.
“I don’t need to have numbers. I don’t need to have a data point to point to,” she replied. “All I know is that I have a responsibility to the people of this state to have sensible gun safety laws, and this one was not devised by the Hochul administration. It comes out of an administration from 1908. I don’t need a data point to make the case that I have a responsibility to protect the people of this state.”
Anne: Do you have numbers to show that it’s the concealed carry permit holders that are committing crimes?
— Anne McCloy (@AnneMcCloyNews) June 29, 2022
Hochul: I don’t need to have numbers. I don’t need to have a data point to say this. I know that I have a responsibility for this state to have sensible gun safety laws. pic.twitter.com/NiCp7POO88
The New York governor called the legislature back for a special session in response to the Supreme Court overturning the requirement that New York residents have "proper clause" to acquire a concealed carry permit.
According to the ruling, the “proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”
A legislative outline agreed by Albany Democrats and announced Wednesday includes imposing new training requirements on applicants while also barring concealed weapons from crowded venues like subways, schools, polling locations and zoos.
The deal also included a provision making all private businesses gun-free unless their owners specify otherwise. (NY Post)
“It is outrageous that at a moment of national reckoning on gun violence, the Supreme Court has recklessly struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons,” she said after the ruling.