Posted on 02/23/2022 4:32:34 AM PST by Kaslin
If you want to reduce gun violence, New York City Mayor Eric Adams thinks, you need to go after guns. His plan relies heavily on disrupting gun trafficking, seizing guns and arresting people for illegal gun possession.
This strategy is unlikely to work. Worse, the focus on gun possession arrests, if it fails to distinguish between people who pose a real threat to public safety and people who carry guns for self-protection, will compound the injustice of systematically denying city dwellers their Second Amendment rights.
"It is estimated that as many as 2 million illegal guns were in circulation in New York City in 1993," the Justice Department reports. Last year, the New York Police Department seized about 6,000 guns; even at that unusually high rate, three decades of seizures would not have made much of a difference.
Given that reality, attempts to disrupt the supply of guns are not a very promising approach either. For crime guns in New York, the average time between initial sale and confiscation is nearly 12 years.
Philadelphia, like New York, has recently seen sharp increases in homicides. But law enforcement officials in that city are rightly skeptical that gun seizures or supply-side measures are an effective way to tackle the problem.
Between 1999 and 2020, according to a January report from a committee that includes local police officials and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, nearly 13 million guns were legally sold in Pennsylvania, an average of more than 1,600 a day. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies seized an average of 22 guns per day.
"With so many guns available," Krasner says in the report, "a law enforcement strategy prioritizing seizing guns locally does little to reduce the supply of guns." And if that strategy "entails increasing numbers of car and pedestrian stops," he warns, it "has the potential to be counterproductive by alienating the very communities that it is designed to help."
As in New York, the Philadelphia report notes, "most guns used and/or recovered are those purchased a long time ago, indicating that attempts to limit the future supply of guns now will not impact the current gun violence crisis." The report's analysis of 100 shootings confirms other research finding that criminals typically obtain guns through illegal transfers or theft, sources that would not be affected by new restrictions on sales, such as expanded background checks.
Data from Baltimore, another city where homicides have risen in recent years, likewise casts doubt on the effectiveness of Adams' strategy. Based on 31 years of homicide and gun-seizure data, a Battleground Baltimore report published last week concludes that "seizing 'illegal' guns does not reduce violent crime, although gun seizures and gun possession arrests remain metrics frequently cited by police."
Arresting people for illegal gun possession is not just ineffective; it is frequently unjust. Krasner says gun possession arrests "must be targeted to distinguish between drivers of gun violence who possess firearms illegally and otherwise law-abiding people who are not involved in gun violence."
When "people do not feel protected by the police," Krasner notes, they may "view the risk of being caught by police with an illegal gun as outweighed by the risk of being caught on the street without one." Before he was elected, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg expressed a similar concern.
"We need to recognize that not every person charged with possessing an illegal gun in New York City is a driver of violence," Bragg said on his campaign website. "My dad had an illegal gun not because he liked guns or because he was 'dangerous'; he had a gun because of crime in the neighborhood."
Bragg has since retreated from that stance, echoing Adams' determination to vigorously prosecute people who carry guns without the government's permission. But law enforcement agencies cannot redeem their failure to protect public safety by locking up people who respond to that failure by exercising the constitutional right to armed self-defense.
"Gun Violence" implies the violence is caused by guns. Accepting the term, you have lost the debate already.
Violence is neutral, like gravity. It can be used for good or evil.
Guns are also neutral, as is other technology. They are simply a power enhancer.
The strategy of those who want their opponents disarmed, is to claim all violence committed with guns is evil; therefore, their political opponents must have their guns taken away.
"Gun control" legislation always exempts those who commit violence in the name of the State.
good point.
The left grab guns from citizens.. they don’t care if criminals keep theirs..
Just like they lock up a preacher or maga people.. and let the rioters riot.
Just to jog my memory - how many defensive gun uses annually does the CDC admit to these days?
It’s understood here that whatever number they have is the tip of the iceberg...
They will also have to bury the subway system and take away ball bats. I seem to remember both were used as weapons in recent times.
Urban guns cannot be grabbed.
It’s really very simple. But, the actual cause of urban violence will never be publicly addressed. It is a cultural problem and not a device (gun) problem. Pointing to the underlying Culture that is causing the problem is just not allowed. And because of this refusal to properly identify the true underlying causes, violence will only get worse.
The CDC does not track justified homicides.
They are included with all homicides.
“With so many guns available, ..... a law enforcement strategy prioritizing seizing guns locally does little to reduce the supply of guns.”
Guns were more available before the 1968 gun control act became law.
Guns were available in grocery stores, hardware stores, clothing stores, liquor stores, bus stations, pawn shops, saddle shops, gas stations and many many more outlets. Cash and carry. No background check, no waiting period, no paperwork.
Or you could choose one from a magazine add, drop a check in the mail and have it shipped to your door.
Seventy years of army surplus rifles, and handguns available along with some anti tank rifles.
Then John Kennedy was murdered by a known Communist, and later Bobby Kennedy murdered by a Palestinian Immigrant. And the USA went mad! It passed the 1968 Gun Control Act which was supposed to prevent gun crime.
“Today we begin to disarm the criminal and the careless and the insane. All of our people who are deeply concerned in this country about law and order should hail this day.”-— Lyndon Johnson signing the 1968 gun control act into law.
I always remember that 3000 people were murdered on 9-11 by people armed only with box cutters.
And earlier, 1987, 43 passengers and crew aboard Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 were murdered when David Burke, with a six shot revolver, shot the pilots and himself.
And Julio Gonzalez who murdered over 80 people at the Happyland Dance Club, using a gallon of gasoline and a match.
The Islamic goofball elected as mayor of London went the same route. Of course, guns are illegal in England. So, when he imported a lot of terrorists they started carrying knives. His response? Why, ban knives.
It is typical of this mindset to go after the weapons instead of the perpetrators or the cause.
They are simpletons. They got put in office because it allowed a lot of boxes to be checked. When you do that, vote them in, and don’t expect a simpleton — you have installed one of your own, an other simpleton.
And the murder rate began a steep rise.
It did not drop to 1968 levels for 30 years, a decade after the trend to liberalize concealed carry permits.
Very few people in NYC legally own a gun for protection, simply because it’s mostly not allowed. So if he wants to go for the illegal guns and prosecute the owners, I don’t have a problem with it...just keep it to NYC.
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