A gun-free zone on display around Times Square in Manhattan Wednesday.

A gun-free zone on display around Times Square in Manhattan Wednesday. Credit: AP/Yuki Iwamura

New state gun laws require top training

The new state gun laws require extensive training “New laws begin for concealed carry,” News, Sept. 1]. The training elements that are part of this law are comprehensive and require 16 hours of classroom instruction and live fire training and qualification.

As a certified firearms instructor, I strongly believe that any person who owns a gun should receive training on its use and safe storage. Those seeking instruction need to work with New York State-certified instructors.

Since the June Supreme Court ruling allowing  concealed carry, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of New Yorkers seeking concealed-carry permits. It is also likely that, initially, applicants who have provided all required information and completed all training will have to be patient and wait a little longer for permit approvals.

— Matt Seifer, Huntington Station

The list of places one cannot carry a concealed weapon is long and, in many ways, absurd.

For those of us who possess carry permits, the very places listed are the places we might feel safer with our guns. While I rarely carry a gun, and would never carry one in a bar, school, hospital, etc., I sure would feel safer if armed in the subway at night and at my house of worship during the High Holy Days when we Jews have been targets of extremists.

Law-abiding, licensed handgun owners like me will obey the law and not carry where we are told not to carry. That leaves only one other group who will carry in those places: criminals.

What have we done here is create an atmosphere that will continue to end in tragedy.

— Ted D. Gluckman, Rockville Centre

The new state gun laws only tie law-abiding gun owners’ hands. The signs being put up not only tell the criminals where to go because no one will have a gun, but it is a waste of money and manpower. People with illegal guns will bring them in anyway.

— Karl Wilhelm, West Babylon

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