Wounded City
Beware hails of bullets — courtesy of Blas
WHAT’S amazing about handguns — apart from the tragedy and devastation that 20 ounces can unleash — is their indestructibility. Like the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards or Cher, they are timeless and, operationally, immune to the ravages of aging. In fact, with minimal maintenance and care, a handgun from 1920 will discharge a bullet with similar accuracy as the same gun minted in 2020.
Which brings us to the matter at hand: 132 shootings in New York City in the past 10 days and the bloodiest June in more than two decades.
Our spineless leaders in City Hall and the City Council labored through all the familiar excuses and p.r. machinations: outrage at the lack of gun-control laws; scorn for an ineffective New York Police Department; talk of the depressive effects of coronavirus lockdowns. Titanically unaware, they refuse to accept that the guns and their owners never left New York — notwithstanding their impassioned claims that Gotham is still “the safest big city in America.”
Cold, and steely efficient, these guns had been hidden at the bottom of bureau drawers, behind radiators and in glove compartments, waiting patiently to be called into service. The first call to service followed bail “reform” in January. The effect of the misguided law was swift and terrifying.
Shootings surged 28 percent in the first 30 days. Empowered criminals learned quickly that carrying an illegal gun in the Big Apple was no longer a big deal. Those once-hidden handguns were now riding in waistbands, readily available, itching to hurl deadly projectiles at eyewatering speeds in a blaze of heat and smoke.
Some criminals began to behave as if they had a carry permit in their wallets. To be sure, not all of Gotham’s criminals were fully empowered — yet. Many still had the metaphorical scar tissue from an encounter with the plainclothes anti-crime units. So they remained cautious, ever wary of a plainclothes team silently descending on them.
The indefensible killing of George Floyd on May 25, however, set in motion a series of events that turned the criminals’ partial carry permits into full ones. In the June riots, 478 officers were injured, 198 police vehicles burned, police precincts were attacked and overrun.
In the wake of this carnage, and the destruction of almost 1,000 businesses, Mayor de Blasio, dim at best, swiftly instituted two policies. First, he eliminated the anti-crime units. Then he doubled down on July 1, erasing $1 billion from the NYPD’s crime-fighting budget overnight: a devastating one-two punch to the NYPD and lawabiding New Yorkers.
The criminal was now fully empowered, the thin blue line stretched to the breaking point.
Brazen felons could now strut from Staten Island to The Bronx, confident they wouldn’t be searched for weapons. How could they be searched? The plainclothes anti-crime officers were molting behind a desk at One Police Plaza. Many other officers were at the pension section, filing for early retirement. Street disrespect and political degradation weren’t what they had signed up for.
July 4 rang in the bloodiest weekend in recent memory, with 60 New Yorkers shot and 12 dead. The following week saw a 600 percent increase in shootings and a 1-year-old baby shot dead in his stroller in Brooklyn.
The mind reels from it all. And still, our political class refuses to accept these brutal facts. Hizzoner clings to the illusion of safety, despite the violence that rages outside the windows of his chauffeured SUVs, if he would but look.
He is oblivious to the fact that he has single-handedly dismantled Mayors Rudy Giuliani’s and Mike Bloomberg’s extraordinarily successful policing strategies. He ignores the devastating effects of his poisonous anti-police rhetoric and ill-conceived police “reforms.” He tacitly accepts criminal behavior.
Bad guys did not leave New York City and colonize the moon, nor did they shed their weapons. Guns, many from the crime-plagued 1980s and ’90s, still work. They didn’t break from diminished use or rust into useless metal. Hizzoner tells New Yorkers to wear their masks; he should tell them to wear bulletproof vests.
Patrick J. Brosnan is a retired NYPD robbery detective, winner of the New York state Medal of Valor for policing and the CEO and founder of Brosnan Risk Consultants, a national-security and intelligence firm.