Well-Known Lawyers Among New Yorkers Who Own Handguns
New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder had no qualms about posing with his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.
But other well-known lawyers weren’t happy about being identified as gun owners through a search of public records by the New York Times. Others included criminal defense lawyer David Breitbart, civil rights lawyer Yetta Kurland and former federal prosecutorWalter Mack.
Felder talked to the Times about why he owns a gun. So did a prosecutor and a judge.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown explained to the Times why he has owned a gun for more than 40 years. It all started when he was a criminal court judge overseeing high-profile cases, including the arraignment of the murder suspect known as the Son of Sam, he told the newspaper. At the time, judges were authorized to carry guns.
Another gun owner is U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., who owns two .38-caliber Colt revolvers. “I was a special prosecutor,” he told the Times. “Sixteen years in narcotics. I didn’t make a lot of people happy.”
Felder told the Times he has a gun because he was formerly a federal prosecutor and his life had been threatened. “I’m not crazily in favor of people whose sole reason to get guns is because they carry a lot of money,” he said. “You don’t want to get in a shoot-out in the street over money. But there’s some magic point where it’s legitimate.”
Other famous New Yorkers who own guns include Fox News president Roger Ailes, talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Howard Stern, actors Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, and real-estate mogul Donald Trump, according to the story and an accompanying photo gallery.
