New York City -- my travel experience

[thefish]

This kind of stuff cracks me up here, and i've been lurking for a while.

Sure, I get it, vote with your feet, bla bla bla.
But seriously, everyone who says "i'm never going (insert state here) because I can't carry, and they are missing out on my hard earned money".
Do you really think the NYC or Cali, or wherever, economy is going to suffer because you didn't vacation there?

NYC is one of the greatest cities, and experiences to visit, in the world. I have been there 20+ times, was born there, and I go back every year to see family, and I look forward to it. It's an amazing experience. The first time you get out of the subway in the middle of Chinatown will blow your mind. The mixture of culture is fantastic. I've never been harrassed by anyone. Once you understand that Newyorkers are a different breed, you get it. Newyorkers are some of the most outgoing and friendly people out there, just in a different way than the suggary sweet of the south ( and I grew up in Texas, so I think i'm qualified).

So you can't carry. Take you head out of your ass, practice situational awareness, don't be stupid, and you have a better than 99.9999999999999999999% chance of living through your vacation, trip, whatever.

If you are too afraid, or feeble, or weak, don't go. What's the big deal.

What if you could carry, were mugged, and your weapon was taken from you, or BROKE (mine just did, out of the blue, so don't be fooled that a mechanical device is 100% flawless), or for whatever reason didn't work, what would you do? I just don't get the "if I dont have my weapon, i'm helpless" mentality I hear from some people. Won't you put up a fighting chance?

There are more cops around in Manhattan than any other city i've ever lived in or visited. They are everywhere. That makes me feel pretty safe. Call me a lamb or whatever, I really don't care. But to me the people who are too afraid to go somewhere because they are too afraid are the lambs.

There was a post recently about capitol one credit cards being anti millitary, (which was the most wayward assumption if you ask me). So what, don't like them, change credit cards. It's your choice. So they don't get your 2 grand, big deal. I spend 20k-30k a month on my capital one credit cards, and I don't get special treatment. However, they are by far the best cresit card company I have ever dealt with. So I can't have a picture of a 1911 on my card, I don't care. What I do care about is they do what I pay them to do, watch for fraud, and when there is fraud on my card, they lock it down IMMEDIATELLY, and notify me, and issue me a new card, overnight. To me that's way more important than some picture. Sorry for the tangent.

NYC is amazing, and a place every AMERICAN should go to at least once. Stand at the base of the statue of liberty, walk through Ellis Island, and tell me you don't feel humbled by the courage of the people who came to a new land, to start a new life, escaping persecution by their own country. I doubt 99% of the posters on ThR here could pack up everything they owned into one suitcase, get on a boat, and relocate to somewhere where they had no money, nowhere to live, couldn't speak the language, had no job, and knew no one.

Thats what NYC is all about. Surviving hardship in a cultural melting pot.

If you won't want to go for whatever political, social, or fearful reason, then don't, but you are missing out.

And don't be fooled that by being one of the sheep and joining the herd of "me too, they won't get my hard earned money" will make one bit of difference to NYC. The city will survive.

OK Rant off.

 

[abq87120]

When I lived in the Denver metro area (20+ years), Denver proper wasn't much friendlier than NYC toward gun owners. Open carry? Forget it. I seem to remember you could not transport a gun in your car in Denver. That may have changed. How to you get your rifles out of town to go hunting? I didn't let the door hit me in the ass when I left. Glad to get out of there.

 

[chute2thrill]

You sir. Have incredible patience.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Roots & Liberty

I grew up in a sleepy little town in northern California.

It's an area rich in resources, and formerly a breeding ground for many successful folk.

I went back a few years ago. The town population is smaller (down from 10,000 to 7,000), many of the Main Street businesses are not just gone, they've been replaced by antique shops. The movie house, Empire Theater, is now Empire Antiques.

Bedford Avenue, once a bustling downtown residential district, is home to a bunch of run-down houses -- one of them actually condemned -- along the street where so many of my childhood friends lived.

Evidently, the city "fathers" elected to turn the town into a "historical district" and many of the places that ought to be alive and vibrant have been mothballed.

I was appalled. There were a handful of businesses in the same place I left them some 35 years before, while others had been replaced by silly boutique shops with a half life of eighteen months, or by nothing at all.


It was in this town that open carry of firearms was completely unremarkable. Shotguns and rifles adorned pickup cabs. July 4th included drill teams with real rifles and pistols, and fast draw demonstrations with honest-to-God vintage six-shooters. A gun on the hip or over the shoulder on Main Street drew no attention beyond wondering whether Chet was gonna get a deer this year.

Today? That town is now part of California, and all that is implied by that.

Commerce has moved out of town. Historical rectitude has been imposed.

I would never move back.

It's beautiful country with an astonishing variety of flora and fauna. It's a place of rich history and tradition.

And I would not live there again.

I am even reluctant to visit, as I am reminded of what it once was, and that loss pains me.


I'm sure New York is lovely. On my mother's side, the traditional "family home" is in neighboring Connecticut, home to the nation's earliest pocket knife manufacturer and to several firearms brands.

As the business and regulatory climates become more restrictive, more of my family leaves the area, and it looks like some of the firearms makers have similarly had enough.

Sure, there's all kinds of rich culture and a vast variety of stuff to see and do.

However, it doesn't seem that liberty is a growth industry there, much like my old home town.

I will miss New York, and I've only been through it a couple of times.

But I won't go back.

The loss of liberty in favor of "culture" pains me.

While I do what little I can to restore what liberty I can, I won't willingly go where liberty has been shackled in the name of safety and security.

Sorry, New York.


On the brighter side, there's a lot to see out here, and most of it wasn't built by Man.

And liberty still has some meaning.

 

[Certaindeaf]

..And liberty still has some meaning.

Amen. Good words all.

 

[stickhauler]

NYC is amazing, and a place every AMERICAN should go to at least once. Stand at the base of the statue of liberty, walk through Ellis Island, and tell me you don't feel humbled by the courage of the people who came to a new land, to start a new life, escaping persecution by their own country. I doubt 99% of the posters on ThR here could pack up everything they owned into one suitcase, get on a boat, and relocate to somewhere where they had no money, nowhere to live, couldn't speak the language, had no job, and knew no one.

Thats what NYC is all about. Surviving hardship in a cultural melting pot.

I might point out the vast majority of those immigrants moved out of that city as soon as possible, many of them moving out into that part of the country the folks who live on either coast call "flyover country." I don't buy into the lame excuse that the comments were simply a reaction to what was considered a slam of NYC. I kind of think the dude actually holds that opinion of anyone who doesn't worship the place. I always felt that fee charged to cross the Delaware Water Gap out by Columbia, NJ was the ransom one had to pay to escape all that insanity.

People survived hardship in many parts of our nation, not just that particular city, and they continue to survive hardships all over this country.

I don't need to travel to NYC to be treated rudely, I have an ex-wife. And for the record, I truly love other parts of New York, there are some absolutely wonderful people in that state. I just somehow never met many of them within the kingdom ruled by Bloomy.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I visited Manhattan for the first time in 2010. Perhaps having lived in Cleveland for 7 years and Saint Louis for 6 years has warped my sense of safety but there were cops *everywhere* in NYC and I never felt threatened. Even Times Square at midnight was a veritable McDonald's playground compared to just a few blocks north of me in Saint Louis at this very moment. I think there's a lot of over-stating when it comes to the dangers of NYC, then again, maybe I'm just a hardened thug now (he said tongue in cheek).

I understand the high security at the 9/11 memorial, though. Symbolically it's a major target. To treat the memorial casually right now would be a grave mistake, imo.

 

[JShirley]

Most of this thread is not about firearms at all, it's about whether you love or hate New York. Frankly, I don't care which you feel.

Stay on topic and stop insulting folks in future threads.

John