Is there any doubt if Republicans take over as governor or control the Legislature, the state will happily see its gun safety laws overturned and guns – including assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips – on the railroad, in subways, in places of worship, in schools?

Lee Zeldin is following Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s model: Arm school teachers instead of getting guns off the street or addressing mental health in schools and communities. And Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman wants people to have guns in synagogues.

No doubt, Blakeman reacted with glee at a federal court’s ruling overturning key parts of the new New York gun law, put into place after the SCOTUS6 overturned New York’s 100-year-old gun safety regulations that kept the state’s gun violence statistics low. In a press conference, Blakeman called the law “arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional”.

Specifically, the federal judge said it should be a-okay to bring a gun onto the LIRR and subway and into Times Square and other “sensitive” locations. The ruling would (temporarily) keep restrictions in place that bar firearms in schools, places of worship and government buildings (because judges and government officials don’t want to be terrorized, but it’s “free speech” to allow armed vigilantes to hover over voters trying to cast their ballot).

Gun violence is not an actual thing in Nassau County – evidence of the benefit of strong gun regulations. Property crimes are up, pushing up county crime rates by 34 percent. Does Blakeman envision the concealed carry being used to foil a car theft? Last I heard, theft wasn’t a capital crime, but he must envision vigilantes pulling out a gun to “make my day.” But that increase in the crime rate also reflects hate crimes and domestic violence – one wonders how easing access to guns would improve those situations.

Blakeman didn’t answer a straight question for data to justify wanting more guns in Nassau County, which has been rated the safest county of its size in the country (before promoting concealed carry). The rates we found were: 3.76 deaths per 100,000 compared to 7.49 in New York State and 20.71 in the USA in 2018 (https://www.livestories.com/statistics/new-york/nassau-county-gun-firearm-violence-deaths-mortality)

The elephant in the room is the source of the increase in crime. Actually, violent crime had been going down – that is until Trump legitimized hate, bigotry and violence as political weapons. The number of incidents involving political violence and threats, which had been growing since President Obama was in office (900), has increased tenfold; hate crimes have hit new records, and domestic violence surged to record levels during COVID (over 3,300 incidents in Nassau County in 2021). How would these incidents be “safer” if guns were even easier to get?

The number of gun deaths in the United States has actually risen from an inexcusable 33,000 a year (a 9/11 every month) BEFORE Trump ascended to an incomprehensible 45,222 in 2020, during Trump’s reign of terror. Per capita murder rates are 40% higher in states won by Trump – where access to guns is easier than to the ballot box or a doctor’s office – than in those won by Joe Biden. Texas has a 67 percent higher rate of gun deaths than California.

“The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data on gun background checks. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.

You know what else happened in 1995? The assault weapons ban, which George Bush allowed to expire in 2004, when mass shootings began to really take off (more than 300 so far this year).

Contrast that with the fact that in September New York City posted a 23.5% decline in murder over 2021 and a 13.2% decline in shootings – after the city and state cracked down on illegal guns. In fact, Nassau County’s gun problem is over illegal guns transported from other states.

Even after six major mass shootings in Texas since he became governor, Greg Abbott signed a permitless carry law that makes it easier to carry a loaded gun in public without any background check, training, or permit, and the number of gun deaths doubled. Moreover, instead of raising the minimum age to buy an assault weapon to 21 (as Florida did after Parkland), Abbott sent DNA kits to parents to identify their children’s bodies after they’ve been shot up beyond recognition rather than to do anything to protect their lives.

Here’s how Blakeman explained wanting people to be able to carry guns in houses of worship, in shopping malls, in Times Square, on public transit: “There is nothing in the law that protects the public from an active shooter. ..if a law-abiding citizen can’t carry in house of worship where they may be subject to attack, it makes no sense.”

The statistics connecting the rampant, easy access to guns and gun violence (an epidemic unique to the United States), are clear: the easier the access to guns, the more gun violence and death. Period. There is no data to support the opposite case.

So If the new New York law is overturned and/if we continue to have rational (Democratic) leadership, the state should re-write its gun law to match the Constitution’s Second Amendment exactly: A well regulated mlitia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

That is: to possess a gun, you have to be part of a well-regulated militia established to PROTECT the state, not murder or terrorize elected officials or people exercising THEIR democratic rights of free speech, free assembly, protest, voting, and to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

No court could argue with the constitutionality of that.