What, a Criminal Ignored New York Gun Laws?

Sunday, February 13, 2005

From theAssociated Press:

A lone gunman opened fire with an assault rifle Sunday inside a crowded mall in upstate New York, wounding one person before running out of ammunition and being subdued by employees, authorities said.

The gunman began shooting inside the Hudson Valley Mall shortly after 3 p.m. in Kingston, nearly 90 miles north of New York City.

The 24-year-old gunman went into a Best Buy store and started firing. When he ran out of ammunition, he was captured by mall employees, police said.

Ulster Town Supervisor Fred Wadnola identified the gunman's weapon as an AK-47 assault rifle.

"Everyone was running and screaming. Then I heard the shots," witness Heather Craig told Fox News.

Whoa! You're telling me someone was able to take an AK-47 "assault rifle" into a mall and injure people?! But it's New York. They have gun laws!

And because New York has such strict gun laws - meaning citizens are prohibited from concealing weapons - a gunner can use bag-toting shoppers as target practice because guns laws keep mall shoppers at his mercy.

Had an armed civilian been inside the mall, perhaps he could have intervened before the suspect began injuring people before he ran out of ammo.

But not in New York. Because there people like me who have never had so much as a traffic ticket in life cannot conceal weapons, unlike in Florida, where you walk past us everyday without even knowing it.