As Crime Drops to Historic Lows, New York Times Complains Feds Aren’t Seizing Enough Guns

The United States could end the year with the lowest homicide rate in more than 60 years, a remarkable turnaround from the record one-year increase in homicides that took place in 2020. Violent crime in general is edging down in most U.S. cities, as the New York Times reported in July. As the paper noted last summer, a “new analysis suggests that the broad crime surge that took place during the pandemic has largely reversed itself,” adding that of the 13 categories of crimes that the Council on Criminal Justice tracks, “only one — car theft — remains higher than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.”

Clearly the Times is aware of this phenomenal phenomena. So why did its reporters fail to take the historic decline in violent crime into account when running a story about the feds seizing fewer guns this year? 

Amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown, special agents at the Homeland Security Department have made fewer arrests for drug crimes and seized fewer weapons than they did the previous fiscal year, according to internal government documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The numbers reflect a shift in priorities as top officials at the department pulled special agents off drug, gun and other complex criminal investigations under pressure from the White House to deport more undocumented immigrants, current and former federal officials told The Times.

The impact was clear, with immigration arrests soaring. The number of people arrested by homeland security special agents for civil immigration offenses went from roughly 5,000 to a record of more than 94,500, the data shows.

Among the key figures in the documents:

• Narcotics arrests fell by roughly 11 percent.

• Agents opened 15 percent fewer new investigations into narcotics crimes.

• The number of weapons seized fell dramatically, declining from nearly 41,400 to fewer than 11,200 — a 73 percent drop.

Now, it may very well be the case that some of that decline in the number of weapons seized is the result of prioritizing arrests for illegal immigration, but I don’t think alone accounts for the 73% drop from last year. With violent crime plummeting around the country, there are also fewer opportunities for federal officials to make arrests on gun charges. 

That doesn’t fit the paper’s narrative, though. The New York Times wants to convince its readers that the Trump administration’s efforts targeting illegal immigrants is putting public safety at risk by pulling seasoned law enforcement officers off their beat and forcing them to enforce immigration laws instead. 

The Times reported last week that H.S.I.’s investigations into major crimes, including child exploitation and terrorism financing, had faltered after special agents were ordered to assist with the immigration crackdown. Dozens of officials who have worked under the current Trump administration said the shifts had hindered their case work.

The newly disclosed data reveals the extent of the change under H.S.I., which is part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement but generally focuses on criminal investigations involving threats like financial fraud, drug smuggling and sex trafficking, not civil immigration violations. Another component of ICE, called Enforcement and Removal Operations, has typically handled immigration enforcement.

… Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, characterized the data as a sign of success, saying that H.S.I. had made more criminal arrests than in any previous fiscal year.

Ms. Jackson also said The Times was “cherry-picking” statistics from the report and dismissed the decline in individual categories such as drug arrests and weapon seizures, saying those could fluctuate from year to year. She did not provide statistics for previous years and did not explain what kinds of arrests accounted for most of the overall increase.

“The Trump administration is making America safer than ever before,” she said.

I don’t know about safer than ever, but certainly safer than its been in decades. As criminologist Jeff Asher reported in late October, “murder is falling at the fastest pace ever recorded in 2025.” 

Data from Asher’s Real-Time Crime Index shows an 18.8% decline in homicides compared to this time last year, along with an 18% decline in robberies, an 8.9% decrease in rapes, and an 8.2% decline in aggravated assaults. Non-violent crimes are down as well; burglaries by 14.5%, thefts down 9%, and motor vehicle thefts down by a whopping 23.5% compared to this point in 2024. 

Regardless of the number of guns seized by the feds in 2025, the fact that violent crime is dropping all around the country is a pretty clear indication that the President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies aren’t putting public safety at risk. That may not be the story the Times wants to report, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth. 

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment. 

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