New York City, which has been touting its success in lowering homicides in recent years due at least in part to tough gun control laws, may have to re-think that sales pitch in the wake of a New York Daily News revelation that homicides so far this year are up 55 percent over the same period in 2018.
This reportedly has occurred when crime overall is down 8 percent so far this year, the Daily News reported.
In addition, according to Fox News, “The number of shootings that have not resulted in death are on the rise as well, with 22 people shot compared to 13 last year, a 69 percent jump.” The city is home to anti-gun billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It is also the headquarters of his multi-million-dollar gun prohibition lobbying group, Everytown for Gun Safety.
While Bloomberg and his lobbying group have been pushing New York-style gun control laws all over the map, their own hometown’s current situation does not seem to provide much of an endorsement to the effectiveness of those laws.
The city’s restrictive gun control laws have left most citizens unarmed and vulnerable to criminal attack, according to rights activists who have been unable to challenge those laws, at least until recently. The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to take a case challenging the city’s prohibition on taking a licensed handgun outside city limits for any reason. Residents fortunate enough to receive a permit in order just to buy a handgun that is kept in the home for personal protection are not allowed to travel with their sidearms except to any of the handful of shooting ranges in the city. They cannot take their guns on vacation trips, or to competitions or training events outside the city.
The Daily News report said rape “continues to trend upwards, with 239 reported around the city, 21% more than the 198 last year during the same time frame.” Police reportedly think the so-called “#metoo movement” has “empowered” more rape victims to come forward, but does it also suggest that more victims are unable to defend themselves against sexual assault because they don’t have the one tool that is guaranteed to discourage, if not stop, a would-be rapist? That’s a question for which there may be no adequate answer.
New York City’s handgun permit application process is time consuming and lengthy, thus discouraging to average citizens who have neither the time nor the finances to go through the process.
While WABC News touted the city’s decline in the number of homicides last year, the station reported on Jan. 1 that 2018 still produced an estimated 289 homicides, which was down from the 292 reported in 2017.
But contrast that with the number of slayings reported by entire states in 2017. The FBI Uniform Crime Report for that year—the most recent year for which data is available—shows more than half the states reported fewer, and in many cases far fewer, homicides than the city produced in either 2017 or 2018.
