Times Square gun free zone sign gun-free
(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A few blocks from New York City’s famed Times Square, a roadside sign flashed a warning to anyone visiting the so-called crossroads of the world.

“Times Square Gun Free Zone,” the LED-style sign announced in all-caps orange lettering.

“Licensed gun carriers and others may not enter unless otherwise specifically authorized by law,” the sign also blinked. “Violation of this prohibition is a felony.”

On other nearby blocks, plastic-covered signs affixed to traffic light poles carried the same message, with a graphic of a black pistol inside a red interdictory circle. …

Kerri Clegg, 48, a cake artist from London visiting with her daughter Claudia for her 18th birthday, said the signage “makes me feel a little bit better, it has to be said, because we know that there’ve been problems before.”

Clegg added: “Just generally, [they] make you feel safer, especially as English [people], because it’s not something we’re around a lot.”

Clegg noted that bustling hubs such as Times Square could be “big targets”, as it was “a very crowded, very touristy place”. …

— Victoria Bekiempis in ‘Good Luck Enforcing It’: New York Debuts Times Square Gun-free Zone

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100 COMMENTS

      • Tell that to the families of the 10 dead people in Canada that just got stabbed by Maniacs with knives because there was no one there with guns to protect them.

        • For want of a nail a kingdom is lost.

          People need to stop voting for monsters who remove the ability for self defense.

          Leftarded/Progtarded hack politicians will promise your safety if you fund them and their ideals, then disarm you, then disappear when the wolves show up.
          They will eventually reappear and claim they JUST need MORE MONEY AND MORE POWER to ensure your safety.
          Oh, they’ll also legalize all sorts of mind altering substances so you don’t think about it too much.

        • James,
          They are insidious with their “let’s legalize weed and while we’re at it shrooms too! You won’t notice that boiling water when you’re stoned out of your gourd.

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      • Brits and American morons see Gun Free Zone signs and breath a sigh of relief. Terrorists and criminals of all types spot Gun Free Zone signs and see easy peasy pickings.

        Not to worry when the signs backfire k. holcum an her ilk will surround the city with Gun Free City signs. And when that fails they’ll surround the state with Gun Free State signs. And when that fails they’ll surround America with Gun Free America signs. And when that fails they’ll surround the world with Gun Free World signs. And when that fails they’ll surround the solar system with Gun Free Solar System Signs. And it goes on and on because democRat stupidity never ends.

        • I wonder how many people two guys with knives could kill and wound in the “gun free zone” of Times Square on a crowded day? I suspect it would be a whole lot more than 10 killed and 15 wounded. Fifteen wounded sounds di minimis but even a wound deemed “superficial” will leave a lasting scar on the surface and who knows what scars in the psyche

    • According to the Libertarians Liberals and the Left. “The people of the gun” need to learn to curb their civil rights, in order to make foreign governments more comfortable. Software, emails, downloads etc. etc. containing information on how to build guns, is stopped from going onto the internet. The Three L’s support stopping this information from getting out to the rest of the world. They say it’s “a private tech company” that’s just “making a private decision” to not distribute gun building plans.

      The tech companies say in order to do business in these countries, they need to stop, gun making instructions, from getting out to civilians.

      And now we have foreign visitors who are made more comfortable by preventing Americans from exercising their civil rights. Just as the foreign governments these visitors come from, are also made more comfortable, by preventing Americans from exercising their First Amendment civil rights, to distribute gun making plans.

      If this was about internet pornography they would totally support making sure it gets distributed. But apparently when it comes to the plans for building guns they see things differently.

  2. My neighbor had some visitors from Great Britain recently. We got to talking. The husband: We hear you belong to a gun club. Me: Yes. Both: Please take us; we want to shoot.

    So, I did and they had a ball.

      • The wife was a little recoil sensitive, but she loved my bull barrel Remington 700 in .223 Remington. I wish I could post the video here of her husband shooting my AK. He wanted to know how to get it back to England.

      • I have a vocally anti gun, aging stepfather in Berlin, Germany but he sure gets a smile on his face shooting up a storm over here in a logging slash. Understands a thing or two about bears now as well. He’s a city boy born n bred so I wasn’t expecting anything much different. Funny how that goes.

    • When Japanese visitors find out that I own weapons and can take them to a shooting range, that’s their first request. I’ve introduced over a dozen to the pleasures of shooting. Each and every one of is taught the basic safety rules before we go and are very conscious about following them.

      The only weird thing is that they want photos of themselves holding gats in hoodrat poses to send home to their friends.

      • Not weird, people I’ve brought to the range want the same. They can’t believe we get to just walk around with guns.

      • “……The only weird thing is that they want photos of themselves holding gats in hoodrat poses to send home to their friends.”

        AKA: The ‘Hollywood’ effect.

        The brainwashing reaches far and wide.

      • alien,

        One of my favorite meme-worthy memories of walking down the jetway into the Honolulu airport is that they were LIJNED with posters advertising local gun ranges (almost always with Asian models, and prominently featuring military guns, full-auto, if possible).

        The Japanese tourists are obsessed with guns, and yes, usually indoctrinated with Hollywood bulls***.

        My youngest son requested, for his 12th birthday, a visit to one such range. They had a package deal that allowed the shooter to work up through eight different firearms, ending with a SOCOM M1A. You got two targets; one for the four handguns, and one for the four long guns. He was catching almost all hits on the handguns (two flyers out of about 45+ rounds fired), and was flat nailing the 10-ring on the long guns, until he got to the SOCOM M1A, when all his shots went into the corners. The range master condescendingly said, “Yeah, the recoil on the M1A is pretty stiff, but with your shooting, I’m surprised you missed THAT badly!” My son looked at him, shook his head, and said, “Missed, hell. I was getting bored hitting the bullseye, and decided to shoot for the corners instead.” He had nailed all four corners, just inside the clips holding the target. *sniff* I was a proud papa that day.

        But EVERY other lane in the range was occupied by Japanese tourists (and yes, their range discipline is even worse than you’d expect).

        • Good on ya and yer son. Proud papa, you gotta be!

          I made certain that my Japanese guests understood the gun safety rules before we even went inside the range building. I didn’t get to shoot very much, as I spent most time playing safety officer, coaching, and reloading.

          The range safety came over to us once; one of the young girls was having trouble with anticipating recoil with my .38 snubbie and was chipping pieces of plywood from the board above the target. We had a quick little lesson on sight picture, and soon she was outshooting her boyfriend. (Which embarrassed him to no end and put a big ol’ smile on her face when she began cutting the centers out of the targets!)

          I still didn’t care for the hood rat poses with empty weapons, but they seemed to enjoy the day. A few of them pretty much begged us for a repeat trip to the range before they had to return home.

      • I doubt it very much. If the JAPANESE want to go to a legal shooting range it’s really not that difficult to arrange neither is it in the the UK. If in the uK you really do have a fascination with guns go join the bloody Army you will I asssure you soon lose any fascination you might have had and they quickly become just another tool of trade. Having said that whilst I am very much in favour of strict gun contol measures as an ex-Smallarms instructor in the UK Royal Air Force I have no objection to range work of legal and licensed ranges which in the UK are controlled by either the Armed Forces or Police. THe problem is that too many people think the law does not apply to thme and try to dodge it

        • Albert L J Hall, you can doubt anything your little heart desires. That still doesn’t change facts. Now that Canada has had a mass stabbing do you want to ban knives as well?
          I sincerely doubt you were a “small arms instructor in the RAF.”.
          I a, also sure, you could not hit the broad side of a barn with a 12 Ga shotgun.

        • OK, Prince Albert the Fake-Limey, Fake-Military Wanking Poofter of a Subject,

          Tell us how many active gun ranges, open to the public, there are in London, you lying tw**.

    • Due to my particular family, work and social circle, it is not uncommon for me to host visitors from other countries. When I ask, “What do you want to do while you are in the States?” The most common answer, by far, is, “can we go to a shooting range?” I haven’t had a dissatisfied guest yet.

    • My (flight nurse) son and I once spent an enjoyable afternoon in a local abandoned quarry letting a visiting Canadian family blast away with our handguns. We fielded lots of misinformed questions about US gun laws (like, why are you allowed to kill someone stealing your car from your driveway?). To a person they were eager to learn and shoot safely.

  3. What the hell happened to the British? They fought the Germans in WW1 and WW2 and today they’re a society full of sissy men. To the British people thinking the sign will protect you. That sign will stop a good guy from going to the area but a criminal doesn’t care. A criminal willing to shoot you isn’t going to care about a sign.

    • “They fought the Germans in WW1 and WW2 and today they’re a society full of sissy men.”

      There’s speculation that the real men were killed off in WW1 and WW2, leaving nothing but effeminate ‘Nancy boys’ to mate with the women…

      • I dunno…ask our resident Brit loser Albert Hall?!? As mentioned knives are quite the substitute for killing when girlboyz ain’t gotta gat!

      • That’s a fact. Western Europe in general lost millions of men in both wars and it’s pussification is a direct result of it.

      • Look at Russia. Hot women. Men who look like weasels. Why? All the heroic types got killed in the conflict leaving the shirkers and malingerers to survive. The survivors then get the pick of the women.

      • I read a comment about the casualties among the Brits in WWI and the article stated that the average height of the Brit male shrunk by X number of inches after that goat rope. I don’t remember the exact amount they were reputed to have shrunk which accounts for the X. Also don’t know if it is true, but Britain started out taking only the fittest specimens and rejected the runts. After the horrendous losses at Ypres and other slaughterhouse battles, the Brits started taking the runts. What they should have done is taken the runts first and left the studs for breeding. I think there would be a different Britain today.

  4. LOLOL! I can’t wait for some limey to see DeShawn or Laquisha pull out a gat in that “Gun Free Zone.” LOLOLOL!

  5. Does posting signs declaring areas free of this and that “work” for stuff like mugger free zone, pick pocket free zone, drug free zone, murder free zone, I know for sure the common sense free zone sign works.

  6. How gay that a stupid sign makes naive people feel better. Nothing stops anyone, licensed or otherwise, from actually carrying their weapon of choice into the area. Idiot politicians, idiot tourists, idiot progressives, just idiots all around

  9. We trained RAF personnel at Offutt AFB near Omaha for their purchase of RC-135 aircraft under the RAF Airseeker program. Different men and women rotated in and out for a couple of years. One of the things they liked most was going shooting with the civilian contractors and active duty USAF guys and gals with guns.

    • Just smile at them, then flash a toothbrush and dental floss.

      They’ll think you’re a magical wizard and gladly give up whatever you request.

  13. Years ago the leftists of NYC decided that the Red Coats should have won, and they were going to pretend that they had.

    Now the British have decided to put in a new Prime Minister who wants to open their borders to the invaders from the Middle East. Within the next fifteen years they will be a majority Muslim country.

  14. The signs forgot to mention that if you’re BIPOC your felony will be reduced to a taxpayer funded reparation to you for the inconvenience of all the current systematic racism that you have to endure.

  15. “Licensed gun carriers and others may not enter unless otherwise specifically authorized by law,”

    So even if I’m an unarmed licensed carrier, I’m not allowed to go there?

    Your terms are acceptable. Screw New York. I stood atop the Twin Towers, toured the Intrepid and saw the Statue of Liberty, so I have no need to return.

  16. Personally, I fail to see the allure of Times Square. What is it? A bunch of businesses and giant video screens?

    Referring to classic Risk Mangement theory, the wise person would compare the probability and severity of anything bad happening with the purported benefit of some activity.

    With respect to Times Square:
    The probability of something bad happening that you can only overcome with a handgun is very low, although definitely NOT zero. And the severity of something bad happening could easily be significant permanent injury or death. Weighing that against the benefit–walking around a bunch of businesses and large video screens–I don’t believe the benefit justifies the risk.

    Am I missing anything?

    • Been there and I can say with confidence that even if the risk were 0.00%, weighing the benefit against the time wasted makes it not worth the trip.

    • I was sent to a company in Pennsylvania to help with an install on a satellite. We went one weekend to New York city. I did enjoy the experience. The twin towers memorial was eye watering and something I will always hold next to my heart. My fellow citizens and those from other countries didn’t deserve their fates that day and I will never forget the evil foisted upon us. That us why I hate people like Whorechul all the more.

  17. Those are some real professional signs- a hunk of plastic zip tied to a post. Wouldn’t take much to cause them to fail.😄

    • It would be absolutely and totally hilarious if people shot those signs full of bullet holes like you sometimes see on road signs in rural areas!

        • *snort*

          When I was a claim adjuster, I’d have the shot-up vehicle every once in a while. Those bullet-hole decals were pretty popular in our area for a while, back then. Now it’s the adhesive half-baseball with the cracks radiating outward, that almost looks like it smashed through the glass.

  18. If millions of American citizens are allowing these laws to be passed and are not actively resisting the oppression…well I have no sympathy for them…They get the government they deserve…THE IDIOTS KEEP PUSHING THE “D” BUTTON WHEN THEY GO IN THE BOOTH…I wish we could divide the country up and give the libs and radicals their own lands…Then we would see which side makes it..

  20. The sad reality of our world is that many people operate on emotion and hysteria rather than REALITY.

    Another sad reality of our world is that emotional and hysterical people who are divorced from reality will happily pay handsome sums of money to facilitators / enforcers to cater to said emotions and hysteria. And said facilitators / enforcers are all too happy to accept those handsome sums of money to impose the will of emotional and hysterical people upon others.

  22. Enjoyed the humor of the remarks.
    Now for a serious question. Just exactly how does punishing and restricting the law abiding and honest folk prevent some one of criminal mindset from committing a crime or from arming themselves as they see fit?

    • The goal isn’t to limit crime. We know how to do that. We did it before. I love how they pretend like it’s a mystery.

    • Unfortunately, inner-city literacy rates are getting worse. The worst offenders are in New York and California. Good thing they include a picture.

  24. They feel safer, until they are attacked by a homeless drug addict and Stabbed to Death….Just like back in Cheeri OL’ England.

    • “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”

      “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.”

      “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

      “The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

      “All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.”

      “Nil desperandum, — Never Despair.
      That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it.”

  27. I guess in order to be a “good” subject, you are required to believe in “magical thinking” . . . like that gun bans work, and “no guns allowed” signs mean f***-all to criminals. But, then, they believe in royalty, too, so . . . waddaya gonna do?

    Hey, dacian the demented dips***, you ready to ‘splain to these idiot “civilized’ subjects how deluded tney are??? No, you’re that deluded, too.

    “Stupid” is contagious – you get it from being a Leftist/fascist.

  28. If a sign makes you feel more comfortable then the depth of your intellect must need to be measured with a micrometer. How, on earth, can anyone not comprehend that if a person is carrying a gun with evil intent, they will ignore the sign? If they are not carrying with evil intent, then the sign is useless, even counterproductive. I just cannot comprehend the “gun-free zone” logic. The people who society does not want to have a gun ignore it and the people that society wants to have a gun are hamstrung by it. What, exactly, has such a sign ever accomplished?

    • NYC is testing the waters…if this is allowed to stand expect to see more of it…times square is a public place…not some government entity…..

  29. I liked it better when you had to guess if anyone was armed.
    “Gun free gun zones are stupid” in my opinion
    Anyone surprised at all the school shootings are more common than when I was in school

  30. Such a display of stupidity is just ANOTHER reason we haven’t (and won’t) visit NYC. Why would anyone now set himself/herself up to be a victim of the NYC lawless who, based on discussions with Newyorkers who haven’t migrated to a safer city, don’t obey the law, much less these signs🙄.

  32. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) are copying signs declaring Times Squares gun-free status.

    Robert Barrows, the NYPD’s executive director of legal operations, held up one of the signs which reads “GUN FREE ZONE”,at a City Council hearing on Tuesday focused on securing sensitive spaces after the Supreme Court gutted New York state’s concealed carry handgun law, reports dpa news agency.

    After the June ruling, state lawmakers passed and Governor Kathy Hochul signed laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons in various high-risk settings including Times Square, subways, buses and bars.

    The rules take effect Thursday.

    City Council members also introduced their bill this month to redefine the Times Square area as a sensitive location after the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

    Noting that more than 360,000 people pass through Times Square daily, Barrows said the state law and city bill “recognise that Times Square is a dense, complex and highly trafficked area”.

    He said the NYPD is working to educate cops and the public alike on developments since the conservative Supreme Court’s ruling.

    “The signage will be placed at every entry point in the zone,” Barrows said. “This will be temporary. More permanent signage will be installed if, as expected, this bill becomes law.”

  33. Dem’s win again! No surprise.

    Dems never follow law and can couldn’t care less about SCOTUS. Reps can’t understand that. Reps just don’t get it that there is no one to take the dems to justice…No ONE!

    Listen up Bub, can the reps stop one dem transqueer from grooming their kids in kindergarten? Can the reps stop one illegal from coming into the USA? Reps are impotent.

    Look Bub, either form a union of conservative states to secede…or lose all 50 states eventually. The proverbial writing in on the wall, Bub.

  34. Amazing. To me, that sign means “Run, don’t walk, away from this area as fast as possible as bad guys are carrying guns here and there is no one that can/will stop them from shooting you!”

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