I confess that the love some conservatives have for New York City Mayor Eric Adams eludes me. Sure, Adams has occasionally bucked his party on things like immigration, and he’s repeatedly visited Mar-a-Lago in a bid to curry favor with Donald Trump (an exercise that appears to have paid off, for what its worth), but when it comes to our right to keep and bear arms Adams is more in line with Everytown than the NRA, GOA, or SAF.
The mayor recently held a news conference to tout the seizure of more than 1,000 firearms across the five boroughs this year. But while Adams was eager to talk about the number of guns that the NYPD has confiscated, he had nothing at all to say about the thousands of New Yorkers who are stuck in a bureaucratic limbo after applying for a NYC carry permit.
Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced the public safety feat at the NYPD’s 75th Precinct in East New York – where dozens of seized guns were lined up on two tables in front of them.
“These guns… carve highways of death through our communities,” Adams said. “They devastate lives. Even when the bullet hits the intended target or unintended target, the pathway of destruction does not stop. It rips apart the anatomy of our community and it devastates the loved ones and family members.”
“When we take a gun off the street, we are able to alleviate, if not eradicate, that pain,” he added. “And that’s what the men and women are doing in this city that wear that blue uniform.”
Hizzoner linked the illegal guns to repeat offenders – less than two weeks after Tisch raged against an “unsustainable” revolving door of recidivism driving the city’s crime.
“I would challenge anyone, each one of these guns, I guarantee you, the person we got it from, in some way or another, had already had an interaction with the criminal justice system,” Adams said. “And this is why we’re focusing on recidivism over and over again.”
Tisch also pointed out that of the more than 1,000 firearms seized, 40 were ghost guns – “the untraceable firearms assembled with the intent to evade law enforcement.”
Maybe Adams is right about the criminal background of every person who’s been pinched in New York City for illegally possessing a gun this year, but honestly, I’d be shocked if that were the case. The amicus brief filed by public defenders in the Bruen lawsuit documented just a few of the non-violent individuals who’ve been arrested and prosecuted for the “violent” crime of possessing a firearm without a permit, and there’s no evidence of a sea change in arrests or prosecutions in the almost three years since the Bruen decision was handed down and the city’s “may issue” licensing system for concealed carry permits was ruled unconstitutional.
Unfortunately, it also appears there hasn’t been much of a change in terms of the NYPD approving carry permits either. While applications have soared, the NYPD actually granted fewer permits in the 12 months after Bruen was decided than it did in the 12 months before the decision came down. And for months now the department has refused to detail how many carry permits have been approved, despite multiple lawsuits that have been filed over the “excessive, unreasonable, and unjustifiable delays” that are taking place.
So here’s my modest proposal to Eric Adams. Every time the mayor preens for the cameras and touts the number of “illegal” guns confiscated by the NYPD, he should also disclose the number of carry applications submitted to the NYPD, how many have been approved, and how long it’s taking for the department to process carry permit applications.
If Adams wants to boast about getting guns “off the street” so be it, but that only tells part of the story. He should also be transparent about what the city is doing to help law-abiding residents exercise their Second Amendment rights… or more accurately, what the NYPD is doing to prevent that from happening.
My guess is that the number of carry permits issued since January 1 is far less than the number of guns confiscated by the NYPD. Nearly three years after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s “may issue” regime, it’s still much easier to illegally obtain and carry a gun than it is to do so legally. That’s a huge problem for New York residents, even if it doesn’t appear to concern the mayor at all.
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