New York City was, once upon a time, one of the safest large cities in the country, if not the world. While the Big Apple has had its ups and downs when it comes to crime, they had gotten a lot of it cleaned up and made a significant difference.
Then it all went to crap.
In 2020, the city started seeing a massive surge in violent crime. That started right about the time the police were being vilified in the media and on the streets of our cities.
But the district attorney in New York says that guns are really to blame.
New York has some of the toughest gun control measures in the nation, but leaders in New York City have blamed the recent increase in shootings on lack of gun control measures.
“We are in the middle of a crisis with guns,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after an NYPD officer was shot dead and another seriously injured Friday night. Mayor Eric Adams called on Congress to take “immediate action” on guns Monday during a speech on how his administration will crack down on violence.
Except, there’s been no loosening of gun control laws in the state of New York. There’s been nothing to suggest there’s been any significant influx of firearms beyond what we see elsewhere, especially in places like Dallas and Miami, both of which saw a reduction in homicides in 2021.
While that’s not definitive, it is suggestive that if guns were the only issue, we should be seeing more violence in cities in pro-gun states across the board, rather than having examples like those two. Could there be a reason Bragg wants to blame guns?
Adams and his administration took office just over three weeks ago on Jan. 1, and in that time, shootings in the city have increased by 16% when compared to the same time period last year. One rookie NYPD officer was shot dead this month with an illegal gun, four others officers were left injured by shootings, while other New Yorkers including an 11-month-old girl in the Bronx, have been shot.
Oh, because things aren’t really looking good for his career.
Keep in mind that Bragg is also being held responsible for much of the problem due to his refusal to actually prosecute anyone.
Luckily, not everyone is buying this crap.
But while the Democratic leaders in the city say lack of gun control is to blame for the increase in shootings, other experts say that is not the case.
“We have a crisis of family breakdown and a crisis of law enforcement, not a crisis of guns. The per capita rate of gun possession in New York is much lower than in many other parts of the country that have zero drive-by shootings,” the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald told Fox News Digital on Monday.
She makes a very valid point.
There are fewer guns in New York City than in other parts of the nation. If guns themselves were the problem, New York should be the safest city in the nation. It’s not.
That’s because that’s not the issue.
In New York, the only people who don’t have guns are the good, decent, law-abiding citizens of that city. There are just too many hoops to jump through and even then, the thing can’t really even leave your home. For a lot of people, that’s just too much hassle.
But criminals don’t care about those laws, so they have guns all the time.
Bragg doesn’t want to acknowledge that difference because that’s simply not how he and his political allies view the world. They want to warp reality to fit their views, rather than accept what actually is.
He can blame guns all he wants, but the truth of the matter is that gun laws didn’t change. People’s attitudes toward law enforcement changed.
