Anti-gun New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for more gun control in the aftermath of a shooting in one of the most gun-restrictive cities in the country that left three people wounded including a 4-year-old girl over the weekend.
According to the New York Post, Mayor de Blasio held a press conference, telling reporters, “Look, this kind of thing should not happen in our city. We need Congress to help us to stop the flow of guns into New York City.”
Yet Democrat de Blasio two years ago disbanded the police department’s plainclothes anti-crime unit, and he is stubbornly refusing to reinstate it. Police have identified a suspect, but so far they have not apprehended him. That man is described as “an illegal CD peddler” who was allegedly aiming to hit his brother, but hit the bystanders, instead.
The city has been sued over its restrictive gun control laws, and a couple of years ago scrambled to change an ordinance that was being challenged by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The city changed the law—which has prohibited licensed handgun owners from taking their sidearms outside of the city—so it could not be overturned by the high court. Because the law was changed, the court declined to hear the case.
Fox News is reporting the incident apparently began as an argument involving “two to four men.” One of them pulled a gun and opened fire. It is extremely difficult to get a carry permit in the city, so the odds are good the gunman was illegally carrying the pistol, which would constitute another failure of an existing city gun control law that was adopted in order to prevent such shootings.
But de Blasio appears to be laboring to shift the blame to guns, telling a reporter, “We got to understand there are some individuals who do the wrong thing. And there’s still too many guns available to too many people and that needs policing solutions and community solutions, but also needs a change in Washington.”
Perhaps things need to change in the city, first, critics seem to be hinting.
An Op-Ed in the New York Post noted the Big Apple murder rate increased 47 percent last year, leaving 468 people killed. This year, so far, the murder rate has crept up another 17 percent, and the year isn’t even half over.
The New York Times is reporting that, as of May 2, the body count in New York City was at 132, compared to 113 by the same time last year. That’s an increase of 17 percent, the newspaper said.
On top of that, the Times said there have been 416 shootings as of Monday, an 83 percent spike over the 227 reported by this time in 2020.
