As TTAG has reported, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made gun control his “signature” issue. As with everything else involving politics timing is. Everything. Although Hizzoner’s campaign to “close the gun show loophole” has failed to gain traction anywhere save the mainstream media, that’s probably the point, really. Anyway, never mind. “Cops recovered 5,129 firearms from suspects last year, compared to 5,537 in 2008,” The New York Post dutifully reports. “[It’s] an 8 percent decline, according to a report by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.” I’m confused: wouldn’t “winning the war against street guns” mean the agency would recover MORE weapons? Apparently not . .
“The mayor heralded the fourth year in a row that the number of guns recovered here has dropped — from 7,059 in 2006.” Hmmm. The fact the number escalated during the first four years of Bloomberg’s administration proves . . . that it took a while for his policies to work? And what of this little number: [New York City] murders are up 20 percent, from 119 last year at this time to 143 through last Sunday”? Oh, and “shootings are up 14.8 percent so far this year, to 373 from 325 for the same period last year.” [ATF Firearms Trace Data for 2009 for all 50 states here]
