New York City, gun regs, places to shoot

[Ed L.]

On another note regarding the handgun laws, I'll admit that I find them more than a little scary. I can understand the in city limitations, but not even recognizing safe passage boggles my mind a bit.

It's more than a little scary. If you have an unlicensed handgun in NYC or even NY State you are looking at jail time and a mark on your legal record that could prevent you from legally purchasing a firearm where ever you move in the future. If you get caught carrying an unlicensed loaded gun, it is a felony with mandatory jail time. The ranges will ask to see your permit before letting you shoot and will record your permit info.

A few things to keep in mind if you live in the burrough of NYC regarding logistics and longarms. While there is no restriction for taking longarms shooting outside the city or even to better ranges in the 5 burroughs, it is almost logistically impossible without a car. I guess you could rent a car, drive out to the gun range, and then return the car--but that is getting expensive. Going shooting starts getting almost as complicated as going on a vacation.

You have to be rich to keep a car in the burrough of Manhattan given the expense of garages and the problems and limitations of parking a car on the street in that burrough. So many people who live in Manhattan do not have cars.

Without a car it is almost impossible to get to the shooting ranges in Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island (I believe there may be one or two ranges in each burrough).

Taking a taxi is doable but would be very expensive. If you were going to transport a longarm around it should probably be in a locked plastic hardcase that looks like a keyboard case. I would not want to be carrying it on the subway. Even with a permit, I imagine you would be getting unwelcome attention from the Police and might tempt potential muggers. While NYC is much safer than at any time in the recent past, it still might not be a good idea to be dragging a big case that attracts attention even during the daytime.

There is only one indoor shooting range in Manhattan and it only allows you to use non magnum pistol calibers (only if you have a pistol permit) and .22 Rifles. http://www.westsidepistolrange.com/. If you don't have longarm permit they require you to take a $65 safety course, after which you can rent a .22 from them for $35 for the next 3 months (not including targets and ammo that you must buy from them). If you do not visit them for three months, you must take the safety course over again. Alternately, if you have a longarm permit you can pay $275 a year.

As I said, when I lived there I lived on the Queens/Nassau County/Long Island border in a building with a garage. All I had to do was lug my guns & accessories down the elevator into the garage and drive 30-40 minutes to the Nassau County indoor range where I could shoot whatever caliber I wanted.

[Ed L.]

AA quick point on the prospects for bringing in NYS/NYC compliant long guns: I would recommend that you not bother making your existing long guns ban-compliant, particularly given that you can keep them in unmolested condition in TX.

I agree.

I also wouldn't want to tell anyone to voucher a firearm with their local NYPD precinct (no offense intended to MOS here on M4C).

This is a very good point that I should have been clearer about.

While on paper you can voucher your longarm (providing it is NYC legal) to your local precinct, in practice, I'm not sure that they would know what to do with it since it doesn't happen very often, nor would might be equipped to safeguard it in their building. It might get rusted, misplaced, or moved to some other location. As I wrote, I would want to be very careful about even bringing a cased longarm into a police station in NYC.

[quote] Just go to a NYC or NYC-area local gun shop (e.g., Nassau, Westchester or Dutchess County) and they'll have stuff on the racks (or available for order) that is already compliant. Suffice it to say that most or all of the fun long guns will be prohibited in NYC anyway, so you're probably looking at a short tube 870 or Mossberg for apartment defense.[quote]

I agree. While by M4carbine.net standards a 5 shot pump action shotgun may be boring and not as capable as an M4 variant with an Aimpoint and all, the shotgun is still a very capable home defense weapon and *infinitely* better than a baseball bat.

Another quick point on handguns: as pointed out by Ed L., if you get a NYC pistol permit ("Premises-Residence" being the most likely flavor), you will not be able to take the pistol(s) "on" that license (listed by make, model, caliber and serial number on the back) out of the five boroughs of NYC. You can get NYPD to issue you the incorrectly titled "Hunting Authorization Card" (still printed on oblong green card stock) that would amend the terms of your pistol license to allow you to transport your unloaded and cased pistol(s) to and from an "authorized range" within the state (and to carry openly while afield hunting lawfully in NYS), but you still would be prohibited from taking it (them) out of state, even just for a moment. The HAC used to be available just for the asking, but it has been reported that the staff at 1 Police Plaza have (incorrectly) demanded to see valid hunting licenses from some making the request. YMMV.

This was something that came about after my time in NYC, is outside of my personal experience, and I am hesitant to even try to open that can of worms.

One big problem with the NYC Pistol Licensing Bureau is that anything that is not clearly written down and enumerated in their written regs is subject to the individual interpretation of the person answering the phone or on the other side of the desk.

I would be concerned that if the NYC Postol License Bureau starts collecting information from ranges outside the city regarding NYC residents who shot handguns there that the NYC Pistol License Bureau might decide to start playing semantics and revoking permits, since you were not using the gun for hunting.

I was born in NYC and spent the first decades of my life there. Even though at times NYC seems like the center of the universe and I get nostalgic whenever I see it in a movie or read about it in a book, there is no way in hell I could ever move back there. It goes beyond guns & gun laws, but those reasons are not relevant to this thread.

[mikelowrey]

As a resident of ny, if you value your indivual freedoms stay in Texas. I'm thinking of moving there.

+1 and everything that Ed said is on point, Although I'll be honest, you tell me you have a gun in the car and you will be a collar . NY is very complicated, but if you were to be out of the 5 boros into another county then that's a different situation, they are more flexible. I know people that live in different county upstate new york (westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange) that have all type of things, it depends on the county you live and the rules they have.

[Mjolnir]

Nothing to add; just an observer.

Damn, NYC is far worse than I had previously imagined.

Michigan once required a permit which required a 30 day wait period, simple 12 question test and "mandatory inspection" (registration) once you purchased said pistol. This was before the "Shall Issue" clause in MI State Law. One would have to keep the green card that was part of the de facto registration with your local PD (and forms to the State) and whenever you took the pistol to the range the card had to accompany you; the pistol in a locked "non-readily obtained" case separate from any ammo.

The green card and strict "to the range and back" - unless one has a Concealed Pistol License - are still there.


Wow. I never thought NYC would be as restrictive as I'm hearing though it should come to no surprise that they'd be so thorough keeping firearms from citizens.

Good luck, my friend. I do not envy you. A friend of mine from MI chose to live in PA and drive 60 miles into NJ for work due to the satanic laws of NJ...

[evilblackrifle]

I don't know if it's already been mentioned, but as I recall, the long gun permit is only valid for 3 years. So you'll need to pay a $100+ fee every 3 years to keep your permit valid. It is beyond ridiculous.