Washington, D.C. is infamous for having some of the nation’s strictest gun control laws. It is also incredibly violent, and there has been a recent surge in murders that the district’s Democrat leadership has been unable to slow, much less stop.

In a desperate attempt to appear that they are “doing something,” Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Cathy Lanier are now upping rewards for those willing to turn in some criminals:

The District of Columbia on Wednesday sharply hiked rewards for seized illegal guns amid an upsurge in killings in the U.S. capital, part of a rise in homicides in many big cities.

Washington will pay a $2,500 reward for a tip leading to gun seizures, up from $1,000. Information leading to an arrest and conviction in a shooting earns a reward of $10,000, up from $1,000, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Cathy Lanier said in a statement.

“Our actions are clear: we need to get illegal guns off the street so people aren’t put in harm’s way,” Lanier said.

Washington, a city of about 660,000 people, has had 98 homicides so far this year, up 36 percent from the same time in 2014. Police have seized 944 illegal guns this year, the statement said.

Lanier and Bowser have blamed the rise in killings on factors including illegal firearms in the wrong hands, greater use of synthetic drugs, more guns and repeat violent offenders on the street.

Yes, Bowser and Lanier are tacitly admitting that their leadership and policing polices are so ineffective that they need to bribe criminals in the District to turn one another in if there is to be any hope of stopping the out-of-control violence.

Lanier—nothing more or less than a politician with a badge—went so far as to make unsupported claims attacking standard-capacity magazines:

“We have added a reward of $10,000 for shootings because we are seeing too many of these shootings now with high-capacity magazines, and the potential for them to be lethal is much, much greater,” Lanier said at a news conference.

When asked to support her claim that “high capacity magazines” were to blame, Lanier had no answers… probably because the data doesn’t support her claims.

Most criminal shootings are comprised of three shots or less, and Lanier has provided no evidence whatsoever to support her assertion that they have suddenly and inexplicably more than tripled (anti-gun liberals tend to feel that the arbitrary figure of more than 10 rounds is “high capacity,” even if that is less than the standard capacity of a given firearm).

Bower and Lanier refuse to face the reality that the District’s incredibly strict gun control laws ensure that law-abiding citizens are easy prey for the city’s criminal class. The police are understaffed and incompetently utilized by Lanier. The citizenry are utterly stripped, as a practical matter, of their right to bear arms.

As a result, criminals (the un-elected kind) lord over the streets of Washington, with little fear of being apprehended after the fact, and with the near-absolute certainty that they will not run across one of the district’s very few and highly restricted concealed carriers.

Strict gun control has left Washington, D.C. as a paradise of violent criminals. It remains to be seen how many more good people must be murdered before the District’s leaders admit that their policies are costing lives.