Are NYC’s gun laws still tough?

New York City is thought to have some of the toughest gun laws in the country. In fact, it seems easier to get a gun illegally here than to get approved for a license or permit and purchase one, as evidence by the recent eruption in firearm violence in our streets.

If we are the most anti-gun big city in America, how could we allow the number of shootings in 2020 to have already surpassed the number of shootings in 2019, with four months to go?

I thought the answer was pretty straightforward: The spike in shootings occurred right after the NYPD disbanded its plainclothes anti-crime unit in response to nationwide calls for police reform.

But when I recently met with Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, he explained that the NYPD is still arresting plenty of illegal gun holders. The problem, he said, is that very few of these criminals are actually being punished by New York’s revolving-door court system.

According to the NYPD, there are 2,152 individuals with open gun arrests between Jan. 1, 2019, and June 29, 2020. Of those individuals, 347 have prior gun arrests, 310 were on either probation or parole, 15 were arrested for shootings after their prior gun arrest, and 89 are wanted for or are suspects in shootings. When they aren’t firing their weapons, they are at the scene bearing witness to shootings, with 147 of these individuals currently sought as witnesses, or being shot themselves, with 29 falling victim to gun violence.

But 1,937 of these individuals are no longer in custody.

Look no further than the case of 18-year-old Micah Belton, who is currently in custody facing three attempted murder charges and a slew of gun charges. He was arrested on May 28, 2019, for allegedly firing three shots and was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. He pled guilty to criminal possession of a weapon on Aug. 13, 2019, and was released from custody while awaiting sentencing.

Nine days later, Belton was arrested for another shooting and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. This time, he was held on bail for both his May and August arrests. But on Jan. 23, 2020, he was inexplicably released again even though he had appeared in court several times since August and was still not sentenced for the gun possession charge he pled guilty to.

Since his release earlier this year, Belton has allegedly committed three more shootings — once in June and twice in July.

After the second July incident, he was arrested and finally remanded.

If someone like this can go in and out of custody, are New York’s gun laws actually that strict?

What’s worse, in May 2019 when he was still under 18, Belton presumably would have benefited from the Raise the Age Law and been held in a juvenile detention center rather than Rikers Island. So why would the judge, Lenora

Gerald, elect to release Belton when he pled guilty?

Indeed, New York judges do not have the ability to assess the dangerousness of a suspect when choosing to remand them, which proved to be a major flaw in its bail reform laws even after they were amended in April. New York is the only state in the country that does not have such a provision.

As the Daily News reported, nearly half of all people accused of gun possession from March 16 to Aug. 17 were set loose without bail. Something tells me that a person carrying around an illegal gun has an intent to use it, can easily get another one, and is not at all afraid of catching the coronavirus. And Shea also reports that 160 gun arrests were made last week, a 25-year high.

So rather than blame and demonize our police by accusing them of not doing their jobs, let’s try not releasing gun-toting criminals for starters.

Holden represents Maspeth, Middle Village and other neighborhoods in the City Council.

Don’t release armed criminals

Cathi Venis

Mike Murphy

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