From: [c d t] at [sw.stratus.com] (C. D. Tavares) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Re: People with CCW in New York City Date: 19 Nov 1993 19:37:02 GMT BOSTON GLOBE BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS JANUARY 8, 1993 ELITE IN NYC ARE PACKING HEAT Celebrities vie to get on coveted list: police roster of approved gun carriers -------------------- By Colum Lynch SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE -------------------- NEW YORK - Bill Cosby is on the list. Joan Rivers, too. And Donald Trump, William F. Buckley, Jr., Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and Howard Stern. There's even a Rockefeller on it - Laurence. Harry Connick Jr. is not on the list and it cost him a night in jail. The list is of a select group of New Yorkers who have been granted the privilege of firepower: a permit from the New York Police Department to carry a concealed weapon when stepping out onto the streets of New York City. The militarization of the city's cultural elite comes at a time when the perception of violence is on the increase in America's cities, said Dr. Gary Kleck, a specialist on American gun culture and author of the book "Point Blank." Never mind that figures show that violent crime - except against young black men- has decreased somewhat since the 1970s; gun lust appears to be on the rise in New York's cultural constellation. Sylvia Heisel, a designer for Barneys New York, recently created a low-cut, full-length bullet-proof evening gown for the terminally fearful set. Crooner Connick got a pistol from his sister for Christmas. He was arrested when he tried to take the unlicensed weapon with him on a recent trip to New Orleans. Politicians, entertainers, doctors and businessmen pay up to $1,500 a year for the opportunity of letting off some high-caliber steam at the exclusive Downtown Rifle and Pistol Club, according to Bill Messick, the director. Who are they? "We don't give out names," Messick said. Porn mogul Al Goldstein, the editor and publisher of Screw Magazine and producer of the late-night cable show "Midnight Blue," has been trying to get on the "gun carry" list since 1978, the year Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flint was crippled by an assailant's bullet. Following a string of rejected applications, he has taken his case all the way to the New York State Appeals Court. "If the crooks and crazies are packing Uzis or Mac-10s, at least let me carry a Beretta," said the card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association. Goldstein insists that his case reflects the special perks available to those at the top of the heap in New York. Indeed, the process has been kind to those with fame, power and influence. Sulzberger, the retired publisher of The New York Times, said he needed to carry a gun to safeguard the wads of money he carries around town. He got one. Photographer Irving Elkin requested and received a permit on the grounds that he carries "money and expensive cameras." Bill Cosby was issued a permit in 1988 after stating that he and members of his family had been the object of unspecified death threats. Donald Trump and radio host Howard Stern also cited death threats. "Threats, as ever," wrote the conservative journalist William F. Buckley Jr. on this application for renewal of his permit. Goldstein said he has more reason to fear than any of the others. The permit the police granted him to keep a .38-caliber revolver in his apartment isn't enough, he said. The 42nd Street massage parlors and downtown sex clubs he frequents in the wee hours to review for his magazine are not only unsavory, he said, the are unsafe. Furthermore, the incendiary tenor of his editorials attract a degree of crackpot hostility that is potentially lethal. Goldstein said he was pistol-whipped by two thugs in his midtown office more than 10 years ago for writing an "unfavorable review" of what he believes is a Mafia-controlled massage parlor. A lewd attack in the pages of Screw Magazine on the late Ayatollah Khomeini after he sentenced the writer Salman Rushdie to death occasioned a battery of death threats. The reaction was serious enough to prompt an investigation by the FBI and the New York Police Department. And if that weren't enough, an article in a South African Islamic publication called al-Balaagh raised the specter of god-drunk "hit squads" enroute from Africa and the Middle East to New York City on a mission to "blast the dirty godless editor off the face of the earth." -- [c d t] at [rocket.sw.stratus.com] --If you believe that I speak for my company, OR [c d t] at [vos.stratus.com] write today for my special Investors' Packet...