NYC Gun Laws Aren’t Keeping Teens From Illegally Carrying

New York’s restrictive gun laws are doing a pretty good job of keeping responsible citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights on a timely basis, but they’re failing to keep kids from getting their hands on a gun. 

As the New York Post reports, the number of teens caught illegally carrying a gun in New York City has increased for the sixth year in a row. In fact, there’s been a more than 100% increase in the number of juvenile arrests compared to 2018.  

So far this year, 427 juveniles 17 and under have been nabbed with guns, compared to 397 for the same time frame in 2023, a 7% jump.

But it’s a stunning surge from pre-pandemic 2018, when 180 juveniles were caught with firearms. 

“I read all the reports that come in at the precinct level, and I see a lot of kids on it, whether it be victim or perpetrator,” said Detective Frank Gagnon of the NYPD’s Collaborative Policing Unit. “The kids there, the kids on scene, the kids around for it. It’s terrible.”

The shocking stats come as teen-agers have recently been targeted by gunfire, including four killed in separate shootings on four consecutive days last month.

“It’s a really, really bad sign,” Chauncey Parker, the city’s new Deputy Mayor of Public Safety, said.

It’s also a clear sign that, for all of the claims from folks like Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, the state and city’s restrictive gun control regime isn’t stopping people from illegally obtaining and carrying firearms. 

When Hochul called lawmakers back to Albany for a special session to respond to the Bruen decision two years ago, Adams declared the Supreme Court had “opened a river leading to the sea of gun violence”, but predicted that the Bruen response bill misleading called the Concealed Carry Improvement Act would ‘dam other rivers by creating common-sense objective criteria for licensing eligibility, requiring completion of a firearms safety training course, identifying sensitive locations where concealed carry is illegal, and strengthening the existing laws on background checks.”

The CCIA has created new hurdles for legal gun owners, and in many respects has made it more difficult to bear arms than it was before the Bruen decision came down. For criminals, however, the CCIA changed very little. They weren’t going through the steps to legally carry a gun before Bruen, and they’re certainly not doing so now. 

In 2021, the last year of New York’s “may issue” carry laws, the NYPD seized 391 firearms from juveniles 17 or younger. The following year the number increased slightly to 393, and ticked up to 397 in 2023. As the NY Post reports, this year’s total has already reached 427, and we still have almost two months left in the calendar year. 

While more juveniles are illegally carrying guns, the new restrictions on the right to carry have certainly had an impact on residents who want to lawfully carry a gun. In 2022 New York City actually approved fewer carry permits under the “shall issue” law reluctantly adopted by lawmakers than it did in 2021, the last year that the state’s  “may issue” carry regime was in place. Since then the NYPD Licensing Bureau has stopped reporting on the number of carry permits that have been issued, though we know the number of carry permit applications has grown substantially… just like the number of juvenile arrests for illegally possessing a gun.  

Judges in family court aren’t even told how many prior gun collars a juvenile has, he said.

“Raise the Age dismantled the system,” O’Connor said.

The Democrats’ toxic combination of going light on juvenile offenders while cracking down on lawful gun owners hasn’t made the city a safer place, and it definitely hasn’t made it “gun-free.” It’s just made it easier for a 15-year-old to get illegally their hands on a gun than for a grown adult to exercise their Second Amendment rights. I don’t know if that’s what officials like Hochul and Adams were aiming for, but that’s the dangerous and damaging situation they’ve created.