NYPD starts off ’22 with 24% fewer gun arrests

Gun busts have dropped over the last few weeks as the Big Apple reels from recent deadly violence against cops and a surge in shootings, new data show.

The NYPD has made 315 firearm arrests so far this year, down from 413 over the same time last year — a 23.7% dip — according to CompStat figures released on Monday.

But the tally this year is still significantly higher than it was before the NYPD launched a crackdown on guns at the end of summer 2020 in response to the rise in shootings.

The total number of arrests for guns so far this year increased by 38.8% and 59.9% over the same periods in 2020 and 2017, respectively.

Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner, Dermot Shea, touted the historic number of arrests as a sign that the city was making headway in its fight against the unprecedented gunplay.

But shootings have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, and recent stats show they remain on the rise.

As of Sunday, there had been 73 shooting incidents with 82 victims in the city — an 87.2% increase in incidents from five years ago and double the number of victims, according to the new police data.

Retired NYPD Sgt. Joseph Giacalone said the dwindling gun-arrest numbers this year were “not a surprise.”

“You’re also dealing with a cold and snowy January so far, and there’s a lot less people out on the streets,” he said. “So a real test will be when the weather warms up. You know, I know Mother’s Day is a day for planting — but it’s also opening day for crime.”

Last year, police logged 4,485 gun arrests — up 4.6% from the year before and down roughly 50% from 1993, the earliest data set available, NYPD data show.

Overall, four of the major crime categories have returned to prepandemic levels this year, with murder, rape, robbery and burglary all down slightly compared with the first few weeks of 2020.

But car thefts, which also surged in the pandemic, were more than double what they were two years ago, with 918 grand-theft-auto incidents so far this year, compared with 467 over the same period in 2020, the data show.