Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Donald Trump once infamously claimed, regarding his unwavering supporters, that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” At the time, in January 2016, it just seemed like more self-aggrandizing hyperbole from America’s most outlandish presidential candidate, but in the years since, a great many of us have wondered if maybe he was right. Now, New Yorkers can finally rest easy.
CNN reported Wednesday that, according to a senior police official, the NYPD plans to revoke Trump’s license to carry a gun in the city on account of his recent felony conviction:
Trump’s New York concealed carry license was quietly suspended on April 1, 2023, following his indictment on criminal charges in New York, the official said. Two of the three pistols he was licensed to carry were turned over to the NYPD on March 31, 2023, and a third gun listed on Trump’s license “was lawfully moved to Florida,” the person added … The NYPD’s Legal Bureau will complete its investigation “that will likely lead to revocation of his license,” the senior police official said. Trump could seek a hearing challenging the revocation. Trump has had a license from the NYPD to carry a concealed firearm for more than a decade, according to multiple law enforcement sources, but because Trump’s application came with a request for confidentiality, they are exempt from public records requests, according to the NYPD’s guidelines and New York state law.
What will happen with his gun in Florida is not clear. The Trace reports that after Trump’s hush-money trial conviction is formalized, it would violate federal gun laws for the former president to continue packing heat in the state — at least for now, since the gun-rights lobby continues to mount legal challenges against the federal ban on felons owning guns.
So it’s still possible that Trump could gun someone down in cold blood outside Mar-a-Lago, and that his voters might shrug it off as a necessary cost of making America great. But it appears that innocent bystanders on Fifth Avenue, and everywhere else in New York, are finally safe from this supposed thought experiment.
This post has been updated.
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