Firearms Truth » Raymond Kelly

Patch.com Piece Tries to Tie Gun Buybacks and Lower Crime Together

FirearmsTruth — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:40:45 +0000

Much of the country has seen a decline in crime, while gun sales continue to soar. And yet this week Patch.com noted that Brooklyn held a gun buyback, in which “over 100 firearms were surrendered to the NYPD,” and noted that crime is down.

The article, titled, “Brooklyn Sees Lowest Murder Rate Since 1963” offered this passage:

The NYPD/Clergy Gun Buy-Back program, which has been running since 2008, has helped remove 7,600 weapons from the streets.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Brooklyn is now safer, and he has statistics to prove it.

We have to ask, does the gun buyback program have anything to do with it? Maybe a tiny small part, but couldn’t it be that many of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn have been transformed by gentrification also in no small part the reason for the drop in crime. There has been a renaissance in many parts of Brooklyn over the past decade.

It is just interesting that this aspect hasn’t been addressed.

Bronx Gun Buyback a Success?

FirearmsTruth — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:45:26 +0000

Numerous New York City media outlets are reporting about the “successful” gun buyback in the Bronx, which netted nearly 1,200 firearms… and cost city taxpayers some $184,000 in the process! Of course the NYPD put a good spin on it, according to The New York Daily News, which noted that the police claim to have gotten more than 5,000 “guns off the streets” in recent years:

“We’ll never know, but that’s potentially more than 5,000 lives saved,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a press conference at Police Headquarters.

Yes, Police Commissioner Kelly, we’ll never know. We’ll never know if one of these guns was even handed in by a criminal. We’ll never know how many criminals now look to steal guns to sell them for $200, with no questions asked. We’ll never know how many people sold guns that were worthless (or at least worth less than $200) to get a quick score from taxpayers. We’ll never know how many valuable firearms were handed in for a mere $200 as well. We’ll never know.