Good morning. Today is Friday. We’ll take a look at what the Legislature can do now that the Supreme Court has invalidated New York’s concealed carry-gun laws. We’ll also look at how demographic shifts are reflected in the Manhattan House race.
In terms of proceedings, the Supreme Court’s decision repeal New York’s concealed carry gun law sent the case back to the lower courts. In practical terms, the decision brought the issue of gun control and gun violence to lawmakers in Albany, where Governor Kathy Hochul called the ruling “shocking, absolutely shocking.”
She was preparing to sign a school safety bill when the Supreme Court’s decision was announced and became visibly angry when she described the 6 to 3 ruling, which builds on A broad Second Amendment interpretation is likely to make it more difficult for states to restrict guns. Hochul says she will call the Legislature back to Albany for a special session, possibly next month, and aides have prepared draft legislation with new restrictions.
She also said the state is considering changing the licensing process to create basic qualifications for gun owners, including training requirements. And she said that New York is looking at a system where businesses and private property owners can set their own restrictions on firearms.
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said the decision was “not rooted in reality” and “has made every one of us less safe from gun violence.”
“There is nowhere in the country where this decision affects as much as New York City,” he said.
But the question of the day was what the Legislature in Albany could do.
“The hardest thing for the Legislature is to calmly write laws that don’t please everyone,” said Paul Finkelman, prime minister and distinguished professor at Gratz University in Philadelphia, who follows the Legislature. New York, said. “It won’t please everyone who says we have to get rid of guns. That’s not where the world lives today.”
He suggested setting an age threshold for gun licenses, like the one on driving licenses, and taxing guns, like gasoline or cigarettes.
Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School, said the Legislature could restrict gun ownership by category, putting guns out of reach of people with felony convictions or those with misdemeanor convictions. related to violence. “It will take a bit of thought” to develop passable limitations, he said, “but not very much.
Jonathan Lowy, chief counsel for gun control group Brady, has argued that letting more people carry concealed handguns means more violent crime – “in other words, more Americans will die,” he said. wrote in the New York University Law Review last year. On Thursday, the group estimated that more than 28,000 people have died from gun violence since the case was argued in court on November 3 last year.
Among those shot was Zaire Goodman, 21, a survivor of the May 14 supermarket massacre in Buffalo, NY. On Thursday, his mother, Zeneta Everhart, said she feared the Court’s ruling. Supreme Court will contribute to increased gun violence.
“What else has to happen before this country wakes up and understands that the people in this country don’t feel safe?” she asked. “The government, the courts, the legislators – they are here to protect us, and I don’t feel protected.”
Weather
It will be mostly sunny, with temperatures peaking in the 70s. At night it will be clear with highs around the 60s.
PARKING OUTSIDE
Valid until July 4 (National Day).
As recently as the 1990s, about half of the lawmakers New York City voters sent to the House of Representatives were Jewish. Now there’s one, Representative Jerrold Nadler, and he’s fighting for political survival because his area is combined with parts of Representative Carolyn Maloney on the Upper East Side. She’s up against him in the August 23 primaries. (That’s right. The congressional primaries won’t be held next Tuesday with the primaries for offices. statewide as governor and lieutenant-colonel governor. A federal judge ordered the postponement of the House primaries after congressional districts were redrawn.)
New York has long been the center of Jewish political power in the United States. As recently as the 1990s, Jewish lawmakers made up about half of New York City’s delegation in the House of Representatives. What has changed?
It’s a complicated story, but largely due to demographic shifts. New York’s Jewish population peaked in the 1950s, when one in four New Yorkers was Jewish. Today, there are about half of the Jewish residents in the city, and they tend to vote less cohesively than in the past. Exceptions are growing Orthodox communities, mainly in Brooklyn.
Regional redistricting over the years has really reinforced this pattern.
At the same time, New Yorkers of black, Latino and Asian heritage have won seats in the table that they previously did not have. So in the early 90s, eight members of the New York City House of Representatives were Jewish, today nine of the 13 members representing parts of the city are Black or Latino, and one Other members are Asian Americans.
How has redistricting helped Nadler in the past, and what happened around this time?
Nadler’s current district is what it is by design. Past cartographers have purposefully combined the Jewish communities of West Manhattan with the growing Orthodox communities of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, sometimes taking a long time to connect them.
But this year, a court-appointed cartographer severed the connection. It seems that the cartographer was not convinced that communities of shared interest were sufficiently connected to stay connected in such a geographically counterintuitive way.
As for Nadler’s opponent in the preliminary round, Representative Carolyn Maloney. She’s a Presbyterian running what is arguably the most Jewish district in the country.
Maloney is competing fiercely for the Jewish vote. She has been confirmed. On the campaign trail, she introduced a bill she passed about Holocaust education and her opposition to President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, to which the Israeli government opposed vehemently opposed at that time. (Nadler backed the deal.)
What about pro-Israel political groups? Which are they supporting, Nadler or Maloney?
So far, the US Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been quite active in this year’s Democratic primaries, has remained neutral, or indeed both. candidates. J Street, the pro-Israel lobbying organization that strives to be a liberal counterweight to AIPAC, is raising money for Nadler.
METROPOLITAN . Diary
Donut man
Dear Diary:
It was 1950. My grandmother picked me up after school on Seventh Street near B Avenue and took me out for ice cream and cookies or some other treat.
On this particular day, she said we were going to Second Avenue Griddle, my favorite place for jelly donuts. They are covered with a layer of crispy sugar. You can bite them anywhere, and real raspberry jam will melt on your fingertips.
I could hardly contain my excitement as we walked three long blocks to Second Avenue. We walked into the store, and the salesman handed me a wax paper donut. I bit into it and immediately had jelly all over my face. I was in donut heaven.
The counter clerk motioned for me to go behind the counter. He points to a tray of freshly baked donuts and hands me a clean, white, ankle-length apron. Then he handed me a wax paper donut and showed me how to glide it into the spout of the jelly maker.
With my other hand, I pushed the handle of the machine down slowly so the jelly would flow into the donut without splattering the other side. I became proficient enough to move things around and before long all the donuts were filled.
I wash my hands and give back my apron when I’m done. My grandmother and I went back home.
“Your Uncle Lenny must really love you,” she said as we went for a walk. “If the shop owner walks in, he will be in a lot of trouble.”
– Sandy Snyder
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
So glad we can get together here. See you on the second day. – JB
PS This is for today Small crosswords and Spell Bee. You can find all our quizzes here.
Melissa GuerreroAshley Shannon Wu and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
