Page Six, the New York Post’s gossip column, botched a concealed carry hit piece on Donald Trump, Jr., on Monday, alleging that he has avoided applying for a New York concealed carry permit because it might require the disclosure of his tax returns. There’s just one problem: he’s had a valid gun permit in New York for over a decade. And we know that because the news pages of the New York Post first reported it in 2007.
Emily Smith, the paper’s gossip columnist, alleged that Trump had recently “celebrated” his divorce by getting a new concealed carry permit in Pennsylvania. The Page Six author then further suggested that Trump sought a permit in Pennsylvania rather than New York because the latter may require tax returns to be furnished prior to receiving a gun permit.
“And we all know how much the Trumps don’t enjoy sharing their tax returns,” Smith snarked.
Apparently New York Post writers don’t enjoy sharing their own news articles with each other, because the existence of Trump’s New York gun permit has been repeatedly reported by … the New York Post. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. No, the New York Post has reported on Trump’s New York gun permits at least four separate times.
The gossipy piece on Trump also expressed befuddlement about why Trump would even need a carry permit in Pennsylvania.
“It is not clear why he applied in Pennsylvania,” Smith wrote.
A quick glimpse at a map showing the concealed carry reciprocity status in each state makes clear why a permit holder in New York might also want a permit in Pennsylvania: New York’s southern neighbor does not recognize the Empire State’s concealed carry permits. The result is that a New Yorker who spends any time in Pennsylvania, whether it’s for hunting, work, or leisure, would be required to obtain a Pennsylvania carry permit in order to legally carry in the state. The patchwork of gun laws across the country, which require law-abiding gun owners to memorize the specific laws of dozens of different state and local gun regimes, is one reason why so many Second Amendment supporters support a national concealed carry reciprocity law, which would make a concealed carry permit in one state equally valid in the other 49.
And finally, despite Page Six’s characterization of its report on Trump’s Pennsylvania permit as an “exclusive,” the news had already been reported by the Associated Press nearly three months ago.
