New York State Concealed Carry limitations

[nyrifleman]

Hi,

I'm a new pistol permit holder in the state of New York (and a new member of this forum), and I was wondering what kid of carry restrictions there are. I know a few:

No guns in government buildings
No guns on school grounds or college campuses
No guns in NYC

Are there others?

From what I understand, if I'm carrying into someone else's home or business, I have to have permission from the owner. Does this mean I have a legal obligation to notify someone if, say, I walk into a supermarket while carrying?

Are there any particular rules about carrying concealed in drinking establishments?

Anything else about that I should know?

Any help would be much appreciated (and I did do a pretty extensive search online to see what I could find, but there is surprisingly little information out there).

Thanks for all your help!

 

[minuteman1970]

What county issued your NY Pistol License?

In NY State, some counties issue unrestricted 'full carry' licenses, while others restrict them to a degree. I live in Nassau County where we can carry concealed to and from the range, or while hunting (upstate only, no pistol hunting on Long Island). Assuming one has an unrestricted pistol license, I am not aware of any further limitations on where you can go though I am sure there are some. I would check the NRA-ILA website for NYS-specific regulations to be on the safe side.

Note: Do not carry or even bring your pistol(s) into NYC. You would need a separate NYC Pistol Permit for that.

 

[mgkdrgn]

One would think that all these questions would somehow be addressed during the process of obtaining the NY CC permit .... class ... printed material ...

 

[Prince Yamato]

I don't know the specifics but I can answer some of these:

From what I understand, if I'm carrying into someone else's home or business, I have to have permission from the owner. Does this mean I have a legal obligation to notify someone if, say, I walk into a supermarket while carrying?

No, not in a super-market. And from what I recall, not businesses either.

Are there any particular rules about carrying concealed in drinking establishments?

In NYS, no. Just don't be drunk while carrying.

 

[nyrifleman]

One would think that all these questions would somehow be addressed during the process of obtaining the NY CC permit .... class ... printed material ...

Some of it probably is. I have not yet obtained my CCW here. My permit is currently restricted to "Hunting and Target Shooting", but in my county, getting the restriction lifted is merely a matter of taking a course, which I'm planning to do some time in the next couple of months. I was just curious, is all, plus it'll be useful for anybody doing a similar search in the future.

I'm well aware of NYC gun laws. Ironic how that is one of the few places in the state you'd WANT to carry concealed. (A lady-friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint in Brooklyn in February. Luckily, they were only after her money.)

I did check out NRA-ILA, but their section on carrying in NY is pretty vague, and doesn't even address all of the restrictions I outlined above, like government buildings and schools.

So I'm allowed to carry into somebody else's place of business (like a supermarket)? What about if a supermarket had a policy to forbid guns on their premises? Would they have to announce it somewhere obvious, such as right at the entrance? Or would it be assumed that I should have been somehow magically familiar with their rules?

What about private homes? Do I have to announce that I'm in possession of a firearm to the home owner? This is not really a big concern because all of my friends know that I'm a gun person (and most are gun people themselves), but I just wanted to know what the letter of the law actually is...

 

[rm23]

There's nothing in the penal code that mentions whether or not you can carry in businesses and residences or if you need to notify anyone, so my guess is that it's fine. Concealed means concealed, so don't tell anyone you're carrying, because come on, it's NY and they will freak the hell out.

 

[P.O.2010]

You can carry a firearm pretty much anywhere on the basis of a New York State Pistol License (excluding the five boroughs of NYC). Even school grounds are not completely prohibited. If you can get a school administrator to write you a letter granting permission to do so, you can carry any legal firearm into a school or college or on the institutional grounds. Another obvious exception is federal government or military property which I don't even count as being part of NYS for the purposes of this discussion because both have their own separate tribunals and don't utilize the NYS Unified Court System.

As for carrying in government buildings you would be surprised. As a matter of fact you can carry a concealed and loaded firearm into a courthouse, a jail, a prison, a psychiatric hospital or any other municipal or state building. Those who don't believe me can read the law for yourselves. The only facilities which are categorically off limits in NYS when it comes to firearms are school grounds pursuant to NYS Penal Law ART 265.01(3) and even then written permission negates the prohibition. When it comes to prisons, jails, courts etc you can bring the weapon into the building, assuming you're licensed, as long as you surrender it before passing through a checkpoint with a metal detector or entering any visibly marked boundary denoting a transition to a secure area of the structure. You might not believe it, but on Center Street in downtown Manhattan, at the Criminal Courts Building, there is a big placard at the entrance by the the metal detectors concerning how Police Officers and private citizens with Pistol Licenses can check their weapons with the Court Officers and retrieve them upon leaving. I didn't believe it until I actually saw it when I had to testify one day years ago.

NYS is very gun friendly when it comes to where you can carry assuming that you can get the permit. The reason for this is that since full carry is so hard to get usually only the wealthy or well connected get full carry (more so in the City than the northern counties). Why would members of the City Council or friends of the NYC Mayor or NYS Governor want to limit where they themselves can carry? The answer is they don't. They rely on the onerous pistol licensing process (and the requirement to have four notarized affidavits attesting to your fitness) to keep people from being licensed to begin with.

You do not have to announce that you are carrying when entering a business or a private residence. It would, however, be polite if you were entering a friend's home to tell them. If a business owner or home owner discovered that you were carrying and told you to leave you could (and would) be arrested for trespassing if they complained to the Police that you refused to leave after been having told to do so.

 

[nyrifleman]

The reason for this is that since full carry is so hard to get usually only the wealthy or well connected get full carry

I have not found this to be the case at all, though admittedly, I live in Chenango County in very rural Central NY. In fact, after hearing horror stories about how difficult it is to get a pistol permit, I was very surprised at how laid-back the process was. I had only been a resident in the county for 4 years, most of which time I had been away at college, and so it was a problem coming up with 4 in-county references (which is what the paperwork specifies): No problem! The sheriff's department told me they didn't care who the references were and where they lived "as long as it's not like California or something". I assumed this meant that out-of-state references were OK, though mine were all in-state. The process took about 4 months, which is lengthy, but not nearly as bad as expected.

As I mentioned earlier, the only thing I need to get full carry in Chenango County is to pass a course. The rules for nearby Otsego and Delaware counties are even more lax (I wish I'd gotten my permit in Delaware county, where I lived for a while!)

By the way, thank you for the very informative post!

 

[P.O.2010]

Not a problem.

The further away from NYC you get, the easier it is to get an unrestricted permit. Unfortunately, more than half of the state population lives in the five boroughs of NYC, Nassau and Suffolk Counties (Long Island) or Rockland County with the result being that for most people an unrestricted license is a dream.

I was surprised myself how easy and pleasant the process was when I applied upstate after having lived in NYC for much of my life. The only hitch was how mechanically unsound the live scan fingerprint reader was. My investigator had to practically beat the machine with his shoe to get it to work and accept my prints. In terms of restricted or unrestricted I was asked "Which one would you like?" You can guess my answer. I even had one of the deputies at the courthouse ask me what I was standing in line for. When I told him my pistol license application he just smiled and said "Good for you."

 

[wnycollector]

I live in Niagara County. My wife and I both received our full carry permits in 60 days or less several years ago. A buddy of mine moved from Erie County where he had a "target/hunting" permit. After a year of residency in Niagara county, he called the pistol permit office to find out if/how to go about upgrading his permit to full carry and the clerk told him that it would take about a couple of days to "get those silly restrictions off his permit" NY gets a bad rap about being anti-gun, but in 90% of the upstate counties it is pretty easy to get a pistol permit.

 

[archigos]

As P.O.2010 said, the problem in NY lies in getting the permit, not where you can use if afterward. Because the culture in NY is largely one of ignorance, business owners *don't* post signs banning guns on the property (and no, you don't have to notify anybody you're carrying - not even LEOs, though I probably would warn them if you're in a position where they're about to find out anyway).

 

[r6zer]

There may be a sheriffs course you can take in your area. I know the sheriffs office in my county offers a course to allow for questions like this. Give them a call and see.

 

[trickyasafox]

I was in Onondaga county but moved to Niagara. Had to write a letter justifying the upgrade to my permit (target/ hunting to unrestricted). The process was easy- I don't know if everyone has to write a letter or if my case was special because they aren't used to transfers from Onon. and I am a full time student.

The only thing they really wanted to drive home was don't carry on a college campus for me.

Few of my friends have even been getting full carry out of Erie county lately. not sure if they are lightening up or what.

 

[TheJeepGuy]

Check here, http://www.handgunlaw.us/states/newyork.pdf

 

[archigos]

The only thing they really wanted to drive home was don't carry on a college campus for me.

You can carry on campus if you have a written letter from "the administrator" giving you permission to do so.
I tried talking my old school (RPI) into formalizing a process for obtaining that letter, only to be told that "nobody is to be armed on campus" (including public safety). Obviously, its more intelligent to lock the students in the classrooms and prohibit them from leaving campus when there's a shooter on campus (as happened today).

 

[rm23]

You can carry on campus if you have a written letter from "the administrator" giving you permission to do so.
I tried talking my old school (RPI) into formalizing a process for obtaining that letter, only to be told that "nobody is to be armed on campus" (including public safety). Obviously, its more intelligent to lock the students in the classrooms and prohibit them from leaving campus when there's a shooter on campus (as happened today).

A robber is not a shooter

 

[archigos]

Even if they shoot somebody?

 

[whalerman]

I'm a NYer, for a bit longer, and was relieved that all I had to do was get a letter from a school administrator allowing me to carry concealed on school property.

Huh?

Trust me. Never gonna happen.

Here in NY we have two different worlds, the city and state. The state is part of the United States, for the most part. But each county has its own policy about pistol permits. You apply, usually for a fee of about $125. You are fingerprinted, undergo a background check, wait 10-12 months in our county, have a one on one interview with a law enforcement officer, take an education class, obtain 5 references of people who have known you for 5 years or more, then hope the local judge approves your application. That's the way it is.

I haven't had any problems at all. The people involved have been reasonable and have no agendas. But some counties restrict the number of saftey classes, then use that against you to deny your permit. Some restrict the number of guns you may have. Some allow you only to take your handgun to the range, locked, then return home, locked, during range hours.

But again, the biggest issue is the variance from county to county. Some county officials are full of themselves. Some believe in the Constitution.

Don't laugh. If you don't vote, this could be you in a few years.
And its not like NY leads the nation in public safety.

 

[Legionnaire]

I was a long-time NY State resident (Onondaga County), and eventually got an unrestricted carry permit. In my opinion, the following link takes you to the best resource on NY's crazy laws ever written. Excellent resources.

http://www.looseleaflaw.com/catalog/bookdetail.html?sku=1-889031-04-6

 

[bob.a]

"Firearms and weapons laws; Gun control in NY". 532 pages. Might be easier to just carry a lawyer.

 

[toivo]

As a matter of fact you can carry a concealed and loaded firearm into a courthouse, a jail, a prison, a psychiatric hospital or any other municipal or state building.

I have done subcontracted work in prisons in New York State (two maxes and a medium), and I can double-dog guarantee you that anyone attempting to enter these facilities with a firearm is in a world of trouble. "No Firearms Beyond This Point" is posted at the front door, before even entering the reception area, and this applies to LEOs and COs as well: only the tower guards are armed.

We were forbidden from entering the facility with cell phones, nail clippers, open beverage containers, notebooks with metal spiral binding, umbrellas, fountain pens, etc. We had to empty out our pockets and bags on the counter and go through a metal detector. I don't know if these prohibitions are mandated by state law, but they are definitely SOP for the facilities, and are taken very seriously.

 

[bestwrmd]

Man, I love NY and I hate NY.

 

[P.O.2010]

Concerning prisons and jails

If you are visiting a prison or jail call the facility ahead of time and ask about checking your weapon at the door. Corrections Officers and Police Officers don't report to NYS Prisons unarmed; they have their weapon vouchered for safekeeping. Private citizens with an unrestricted pistol license can as well. It all depends on the warden. It's the same with NYS Courthouses. They have a place to store sensitive items on site. Call ahead or ask the Court Officer.

According to NYS Law (NYS PL 205.25) you cannot "knowingly and unlawfully introduce dangerous contraband" into a correctional facility. There are a whole host of items which are legal on the street but illegal in a prison. You get those items back when you leave the facility.

 

[toivo]

If you are visiting a prison or jail call the facility ahead of time and ask about checking your weapon at the door. Corrections Officers and Police Officers don't report to NYS Prisons unarmed; they have their weapon vouchered for safekeeping. Private citizens with an unrestricted pistol license can as well. It all depends on the warden.

The facilities that I worked in did have weapon-check facilities for LEO and CO, but at the "civilian" orientation we were told to leave any prohibited items in our cars, to not even bring them into the building.