I am not aware of any definitive studies, though some may exist. I would guess it's a whole host of actions taken through the leadership of the city's then mayor.
Another way to look at it is from the perspective of a law-abiding citizen who is now forbidden to possess the means to self-defense. Are they truly safer?
I wasn't aware they were forbidden. I knew there were permit and registration requirements for hand guns, namely to get the 2 million illegal guns off the street and keep them out of the hands of felons and at risk youth. As far a I know, there are no such requirements for rifles or shotguns. So if I lived there, I could get a gun as I do not have a police record. Therefore I would feel a tad safer.
But one issue stands above these in my view: convenience and expedience are no justification for violating the rights of New York's citizens to keep and bear arms.
That would depend on how extensive you consider that right. The issue is to what extent can a state exercise its powers to preserve safety and security? I imagine one day a USSC opinion will come down on it. No one questions the power of a state to enact laws which infringe on total free speech, nor to enact laws discriminatory to some group or another under certain circumstances.
The same justifications could be made in a natural disaster. Consider New Orleans after the hurricane: just when they needed protection that firearms afford, many were disarmed in the name of expedience.
I recall it. OTOH, how should a state determine who can carry and what type of weapon they can carry?
And yes, the Weimar regime which imposed gun control in Germany used many of the same justifications that gun control advocates do today, laying the groundwork for the Nazis who merely strengthened the enforcement of those laws. By then it was too late.
Once we start being compared to Nazi Germany, there is little room left for intellectual discussion. One assumes that such comparison is somehow meant to justify a complete, unregulated right to keep and bear any arms the citizen wants, no matter the type, or the mental, age, or legal status. It is further assumed by such statements, that the purpose is to ensure that a Nazi like government can be effectively opposed by means of force of arms, which is ludicrous at best.
Is there any evidence that the Second Amendment was not written to give any and all free persons the right to make, purchase, or otherwise acquire without theft, any and all such artifacts as might be useful as weapons in a well-functioning citizen army, without interference from the government?
Slaves are not free persons. Prisoners are not free persons. Unemancipated minors are not free persons (they are wards of their parents, and have such freedoms as their parents choose to give them). Committed inmates in lunatic assylums are not free persons. Outlaws are not free persons (since they are subject to capture at any time).
If it is no longer acceptable to give all free persons the right to acquire without restriction any and all such artifacts as could be used as arms in a well-functioning citizen army, then the Constitution should be amended to change that. I would expect that an amendment allowing Congress to restrict private ownership of significant quantities of fissionable materials, for example, could be ratified without too much difficulty if courts held that such an amendment would be required to impose such restrictions. So what's the problem with regarding the Second Amendment as applying absolutely to all free persons?
I think you've made your points in favor of the "legitimacy" of Giuliani's gun control, and against the second amendment's intent and relevance in NYC very clear. Thanks for spelling it all out so clearly. The American people will have ample opportunity to consider this for themselves now.