NYC Police Commissioner Comments Following Harlem Shootout

As a former resident of South Harlem this reporter lived only about 30 blocks from this past weekend’s shootout that occurred early Sunday morning. During this confrontation police officers fired 46 shots, with five people hit and one killed. This is a disturbing fact of life in some parts of the country, and while an isolated event, the words spoken by New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly make us actually question the gun laws in the Big Apple once again.

MyFoxNY.com quoted Kelly as stating:

“Unfortunately, police on the street run into guns that equal their own. The fact that this was a five shot, .38 revolver is an abberation [sic]. We don’t see that. We see Mac 10s. We see heavy firepower on the street.”

Mac 10s aren’t legal in New York City, or pretty much anywhere in the country for that matter. More importantly, this is yet another case where clearly New York’s draconian gun laws don’t do the job. It is nearly impossible to get a handgun permit without much hassle, and yet two individuals had guns, which resulted in a shootout with police. Clearly the law isn’t stopping the criminals from carrying guns anyway.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg however sees it differently, and was quoted in The Wall Street Journal:

“The story is: Too many illegal guns on the street, people wanting to kill other people and our cops putting their lives on the line.”

Again, the key words from Bloomberg are “illegal guns,” but this mayor continues to believe that the solution is to ban all guns in the city, or at least to make it so hard that no one will bother. But as can be seen from this incident, the criminal element will just go around the legal means and find another way.