Armed violence has become a national crisis that must be addressed with effective measures such as a reform of weapons laws. This is how Mayor Eric Adams explained it during his participation this Tuesday in a morning program.
This crisis forces us to fight on several fronts and with different strategies. One of them is, according to the New York mayor, doubling the staff of the Agency for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in New York. Currently, the number of ATF agents nationwide is 2,400.
“Around 60 of them are here in New York We have to double that number. We have to have a leader there to be able to share information like we do every day in New York to talk about the dangers of people with guns and to focus on gangs,” Adams told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“This is how we are getting these street guns. That’s why we have a decrease of 21% of shootings in the city during the month of April. We want to achieve the same in the month of May because we have police control over dangerous people who carry and use weapons, but we have to keep them off the streets. That’s part of the problem,” he added.
Adams, who is co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns -a nonpartisan coalition of more than a thousand mayors-, believes that the real crisis in the United States United is the gun.
“That is what Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York are experiencing,” he stressed, adding that one of the biggest problems that must be dealt with is the one with the ghost guns. The mayor was of the opinion that although they are unarmed they should be treated as real weapons. ATF estimates that since 400, approximately 45,000 phantom weapons in criminal acts.
May, which has been designated Gun Violence Awareness Month, has been plagued by deadly shootings.
Today, Americans remain in shock for the massacre that occurred in Uvalde, Texas, last Tuesday, which left 21 victims, 14 minors and two teachers. New York has been no stranger to gun violence. On 14 May, a young man walked into a supermarket in Buffalo, and killed 10 people. Two weeks ago, in the Bronx, a minor of 11 years old -Kyhara Tay- died as a result of a stray bullet.
And precisely amid rising gun violence, the Supreme Court is soon expected to rule on a pending case on New York State’s strict concealed-carry laws of fire.
“We really have to look at the ruling that is about to come out of the Supreme Court. The open carrying of weapons is a crisis. Can you imagine being on the 4 train with someone who openly carries a firearm?” asked the Democratic politician who took office on January 1st.
Other states
The problem goes further since, according to Adams, other states have more lax laws for access to purchase and carrying weapons.
“In the City we have strict weapons laws that we can lose through the Supreme Court. But when guns are allowed to be bought in Georgia, Atlanta and other places, and then brought into the city through the ‘iron pipeline,’ that’s a real problem,” he said, recalling that in Atlanta they basically dismantled all the rules about background checks and identification.
“That is a problem that we must face. But background checks must go beyond simply looking at someone’s ID. We need the social media industry to be a part of this by using artificial intelligence to identify those who use dangerous terms, so we can run proper background checks. Not only what is on paper and documented, but what they are doing on social networks”, he indicated.
“ We need to be honest about this issue and we need to make an effort to really stop this tide”, affirmed the Mayor.