Eric Adams Met Gala End Gun Violence
New York Mayor Eric Adams (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Ghost guns are the bugbear of the moment, because only a lunatic would defend them. And because it is much easier, and far less controversial, to blame them for New York’s blood-spattered sidewalks than it would be to bring the full force of the law down on the core problem — the trigger-pullers.

There is no hoarier cliché in the American conversation than “guns don’t kill, people do.” But its depressing ubiquity doesn’t make it any less true. 

Thus, no gun-violence policy is going to succeed if it isn’t focused as squarely on criminals as it is on weapons.

Mayor Adams seems to get this, sort of. He has undone a lot of the damage inflicted on the NYPD by his predecessor. Gun crime seems to have leveled off a bit — although it remains appallingly high compared to pre-pandemic levels, and the summertime-carnage season is rapidly approaching.

But even he seems caught up in the rhetoric of the moment. He’s constantly rattling on about ghost guns — and if his “end gun violence” tuxedo at the Met Gala the other night had a point, it was not aimed at the people who matter.

They would be the Albany establishment — Gov. Hochul and a legislative leadership responsible for the so-called “reforms” meant to lighten the burden on New York’s criminal class. And they persist in this mischief, despite poll after poll showing that crime is squarely atop the list of New Yorkers’ concerns.

Adams should exploit this.

He might ask Hochul — rhetorically if not face to face — if she’s comfortable with the fact that Edison Cruz was free to commit murder after three separate arrests on ghost-gun charges, with no significant sanctions in sight.

And if she’s not comfortable, what does she plan to do about it. Her answers, in an election year, should be instructive.

– Bob McManus in ‘Ghost Guns’ Can Cause Serious Harm, but Controversial Bail Reform Is Scarier for NYC

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37 COMMENTS

  1. Mayor Eric Adams is more interested in being a rock star than doing the work of the people. I imagine he hasn’t sat in the mayor’s office long enough to warm the chair. I’ll never understand why these fools blindly vote for the democrat every time.

    • The most powerful position in New York state and potentially the country would have to be the Five Family’s representatives at Tammany Hall. They certainly dictate Democrat Party policy at the city and state level, and even nationally to a degree.

  3. mini mayor adams is another sock puppet gun control useful idiot for mini mike bloomberg. Only a complete moron thinks they can use a completed 80% in a crime and get away with it; there are too many factors outside a silly serial number that can nab a criminal. Frankly the vast majority of criminals are not drill press owning, mechanically inclined DIY types.

    Bottom line…Labeling a firearm as a “ghost gun” and using catch and release criminals to ramp up public fear is nothing more than a underhanded lowlife scheme to end The “embarrassing” Second Amendment.

    • Why go to the time and effort to build one when it’s going to be at the bottom of the nearest body of water once the deed is done?

  4. From the linked article: “The guns can’t be tolerated, certainly.”

    Wrong answer. Prior to 1968 there was no requirement to serialize firearms. The problem is the political agenda and the anti-gun wussies who think that a full-on tyrannical police state will save their skinny butts.

  5. Leftist control freaks can’t grasp that a gun is an inanimate object incapable of doing anything without a human.
    dacioan, the dunderhead, please note!

    • to Walter the Beverly Hillbilly who flunked out in the 6th grade.

      Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and psychopaths is the path civilized nations chose decades ago and those psychopaths include you Walter. The ATF and FBI will explain it all to you when they pay you a visit.

      • Except nothing you ever advocate really does that. The crooks will get their gats regardless and lawful citizens get the shaft.

      • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD ROFLMAOBT! The way your “civilized countries” keep guns out of the hands of criminals is by banning them all together,
        Seen the ATF and the FBI my way. I ‘ll be glad to explain to them the 2nd Amendment.

  6. Get out of cities. Find a hidey-hole in a red state or a red area of a purple state. It’s gonna be a long hot summer. The radical left is going to use crime as a cover to further weaken our institutions.

  8. I was scheduled to go to NYC this week to speak at a conference, but, I despise that city and successfully connived someone else to cover the talk.

    I am not going into a city that wants me unarmed but lets bad guys lose with no bail or wrist-slap sentences.
    The traffic is horrendous and I refuse to mask which means I cannot use public transportation. The 1.5 mile drive from the Lincoln Tunnel exit to the Javitts Center parking deck can take 45 minutes. Ask me how I know.

    So, I did my best weasel impersonation and get to stay home this week, attending virtually

    • Hah, anyone half healthy should be able to walk that route in half an hour. Pathetic. and I belly che about forty five minutes to drive thirty miles on Seattle area freeways.

  13. Adams is about what I would have expected based on his career and politics in NYC. Which is to say: better than his immediate predecessor, but not much above that low bar.

  14. The Far Right Neanderthals are always there own worst enemies. The Republicans are always screaming for putting criminals in jail i AFTER THE CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED makes about as much sense as locking the barn door after the horse escaped.

    Banning Ghost Guns (which has already been done by the ATF) is PREVENTING criminals and lunatics from getting them. This concept is too far advanced for the Paranoid Neanderthals of the Far Right whose paranoia prevents them from using clear and logical thinking.

    The causes of crime, violence and murder are complex but the Neanderthals of the Far Right can only understand simple solutions which are always ineffective and often cost millions such as the 3 strikes and you are out laws that put people in jail for stealing a $1.00 item for as long as 20 years resulting in millions being spent incarcerating them as well as building new prisons and of course hiring untrained armies of thug killer cops who could have trained even the North Korean police in more brutality and murder.

    The U.S. has the most people in prison than any other country in the world yet we have one of the highest crime rates proving the Sadistic Jack Booted Far Right have been wrong all along calling for torture, mass executions and shooting people out of hand and putting more people in jail.

    Here are just some of the reasons Capitalvania has such a high crime and mass murder rate:

    Lack of good paying jobs with benefits.

    Lack of affordable technical and college education.

    Lack of retraining programs finances both by industry and by the Government.

    Broken homes.

    Both parents working multiple jobs leaving latch key children to grow up on their own.

    Drug addition of parents, even some of those with high paying jobs.

    Lack of affordable mental and physical health care (blocked consistently by the gangster criminal Republicans).

    Lack of Universal Background Checks and Safe storage laws, again blocked by the Gangster Criminal Republicans which let criminals and lunatics buy all the firepower they want.

    Studies prove States with tough abortion laws have higher crime rates than those states that have affordable and easy access to abortion. Unwanted children are often abused and neglected breeding tomorrows lunatic mass murders and criminals. The children often get sub-standard education and little if any help at home from their parents to meet their educational needs.

    The failure of the savage land of uncivilized Capitalvania to decriminalize drug addition. Drug Lords cannot sell drugs and cause the resulting crime and murder if the addicted people get free drugs and treatment from the government. The European countries have proven that treatment instead of incarceration is actually cheaper and more successful than putting millions of addicts in jail but this concept to the stingy, cheap ass, sadistic Republicans is far too advanced a concept to be understood by their pea brain size minds.

    These are only some of the complex reasons we have a high crime and mass murder rate.

    ONE FINIAL NOTE:

    I am not against helping the Ukrainians with military and humanitarian aid but the billions we are shelling out INSTANTLY proves that the lying Republican filth that constantly scream we cannot afford National Health Care was proven false by the huge amount of money we spent and are spending instantly to help the Ukrainians. Its true we probably have no choice but the Republicans had no trouble coming up with the money but they scream that they never have the money to spend on the American people for their health and welfare.

    • “The Republicans are always screaming for putting criminals in jail i [sic] AFTER THE CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED makes about as much sense as locking the barn door after the horse escaped.”

      Brilliant! We should be putting people in jail *before they commit crimes.*

      “Banning Ghost Guns (which has already been done by the ATF) is PREVENTING criminals and lunatics from getting them.”

      Wrong. Implementation of the rule won’t begin until the end of August — if it ever does.
      Expect to see multiple lawsuits from gun-rights groups asking the courts to strike down the rule on constitutional grounds.

      “Studies prove States with tough abortion laws have higher crime rates than those states that have affordable and easy access to abortion.”

      ONE study, which has been DEBUNKED. Why do you repeat your lies when you’re shown the evidence?

      https://www.nrlc.org/archive/news/2001/NRL06/randylaura.html

      Conclusion of study: “Problems lie not just in what Donohue and Levitt did with their numbers. At least one scholar noted problems with Donohue and Levitt’s initial data itself. Says economist Ted Joyce of Baruch College and the National Bureau of Economic Research, ‘Can you tease out that effect [of abortion] from crude aggregate data on crime 15 to 20 years later? I don’t think so.’”

      “ONE FINIAL [sic] NOTE:”

      You really don’t understand how this all works, do you? The Dems are in charge of the government and purse strings, not the R’s. If we did have all that money to spend on national health care, it’s gone now. The Dems spent it all on Ukraine.

  15. If the present trend continues, NYC will be a whole lot more like Londonistan than any Ameircan city.
    Think about it.. they’ve been denied firearms there for decades, yet their murder nd assault rates are somewhere neear NYC’s. Now Londoners can’t eben walk into the locl market and buy a kitchen knife. Illegalweapon, they are.

    BYC’s eedjits somehow think the lack of a stamped number makes a gun not only more lethal, but impossible to find or identify. I’ve got firearms purchased before NICS, and even thoughthey’ve got numbers on them they are STILL untraceable to me. Besides, there are cases where a numbered gun was involved in multiple crimes, they KNEW ir ws the same one but could not identify it nore FIND it. No clue who ctually had possession of it. Two and a halfyears, more than fifty shootings, same gun, but no clue what it ws (beyond calivre.. nine mm, now THAT”s all we need to know, right? illions of em out there. WHICH ONE was used in THIS shooting? No one knows). They finally found the gun, abndoned at a crme scene. could as easily have been hucked into the East River as someone walked ccross the bridge. Once they HAD the gun, they re-proved it ws the same one in tose 50+ crimes, but never did find out WHO actuall had it and USED it in each of those fifty plus incidents. Turns out it had been stolen from a gun store heist three years earlier. Never did estblish WHO used it when or where. serial numbers on guns are of only limited use. These pawl a TISH uns lie when they claim a serial number renders a gun “traceable”. No it does not. Even if it DID, they sill do not know WHO had it and USED it on “the day in question”. Even having the numbered gun in hand could not identify one of the multiple users of the one described above. And each year these big city governments deal with hundreds of such guns used in crimes… ALL of then with numbers that might as well not be there. Theyd rather blame ME for the guns I have made and bought legally before FFL and NICS were “in charge”.

    • To tionico

      Actually the British gun control laws are what saved a mass murder about a year ago on the London Bridge. A group of self-anointed terrorists were foiled from buying illegal and legal guns so they used knives and they got the shit beat out of them when they attacked people in a bar who used broken beer bottles and chairs to annihilate them. In the lawless land of Capitalvania they would have bought second hand assault rifles and massacred everyone the bar in a few seconds.

      Next time research first before making a complete fool of yourself.

      And by the way your fantasy story about a gun with a serial number not being able to be traced is only a half truth. If Universal Background Checks and safe storage laws were in effect criminals would not have access to used guns and the amount of stolen guns would be far less as well. Smash and grab robberies would not yield arms full of stolen guns.

      • “Next time research first before making a complete fool of yourself.”

        Good advice. Too bad you never follow it. At least you’re a consistent fool.

  16. I confess … I’m definitely defending ghost guns so that’s definitely the best of the lunatic in me. I don’t know who hired this girl to write for this website but they must’ve lost a lawsuit somewhere in order to suffer having her leftist liberal presence on the payroll. She must be part of Mom’s Against guns / women ignored organization.

  17. That’s why I say we have no hope for change except by force. This country has been taken over by corrupt politicians for over 45 years. Everyone one that in government from the past 45 years has baggage. They all need to be put on trial and investigated.i do home work ….. 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤.𝐜𝐨𝐦

  18. How can anyone, office or city be so stupidly blind? Guns or ghost guns or for that matter ANY firearm or physical object DO NOT get up, attack and kill ANYBODY. Cannot happen. They are inanimate objects. What needs to be dealt with is the PEOPLE that use these objects. They have no excuse. They chose to use whatever object to kill with, but the object itself HAD to be manipulated by a PERSON. Quit blaming objects for human actions.

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