NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK — A 31-year-old Marine Corps veteran and mother was visiting the 9/11 memorial in NYC on Saturday with a friend, and paid the price for asking Ground Zero security guards this question:
“Where can I store my 9mm and .380 caliber pistols?”
Elizabeth Anne Enderli, who did a tour in Kuwait in 2004, is a Texan with a Texas concealed carry permit. Traveling from Houston and landing in Philadelphia, Enderli followed the laws all the way. Her firearms were kept in a lockbox during travel and once they arrived in Philly, they rented a car and drove to NY.
Thinking that her concealed carry permit was no problem while visiting NY, she wasn’t thinking she was breaking the law. If she had, the question posed to the security guards would have likely went unasked.
This sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Oh, and here as well.
“This whole thing is, pardon my language, bulls–t,” friend Aimey Richardson told The Post at Manhattan Criminal Court.
Richardson told The Post that her and Enderli always have their firearms on them.
“Our husbands don’t give us a hug and a kiss, they pat us down to make sure we’re armed,” she said. “We’re not allowed to go out without them.”
While that may be true, the rules change drastically one a person steps foot in a state such as NY. For anyone reading who may not know, the only time you can carry a firearm in the state of NY is when you have a NY concealed carry permit. That’s it. Reciprocity does not exist.
Enderli was arraigned on weapons-possession charges and also released on her own recognizance Sunday, after spending the night in jail. She could face up to three years in prison for the charges.
While the state of Texas has recognized NY permits since 2006, the road obviously does not go both ways. It seems that Enderli was under the impression that if one state recognized the other, that meant the other accepted… the other.
This is why education is so important while traveling. There are great apps available, as well as interactive reciprocity maps that are very useful tools to check out before crossing state lines.
We’ll see what happens with this particular case and wish Enderli the best. Maybe, just maybe, some change will come due to these recent cases involving honest, law-abiding citizens bringing firearms across invisible borders.
Very doubtful, especially for a state like NY.
