Holding their fire

For all their training on the firing range, it’s thankfully rare for an NYPD officer to shoot a gun — and rarer still with each passing year. Incredibly, in all of 2017, the police sent bullets flying in just 23 incidents, down from 37 last year and 147 back in the hardto-fathom-now days of 1996.

Just try to square those stats with the stereotype holding police to be wanton killers of civilians.

Or with the idea that New York City is made somehow safer when the police liberally use deadly force, when we’re on pace to record the fewest murders this year since the 1950s.

Witness the discipline now meted out to officers involved in the fatal 2012 shooting of young Ramarley Graham to see how much and how quickly the NYPD culture has changed.

Lesson learned: Peace begets peace.