Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams looked to take one last victory lap Monday before handing the reins of the city over to incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani by announcing the removal of 25,000 illegal guns from the streets since he took office in 2022.
Adams stood inside City Hall beside Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and a collection of confiscated firearms that included everything from handguns to shotguns. Hizzoner wasted little time patting himself on the back for what he cited as a major milestone in public safety.
“I’m the only mayor that understood law enforcement, I’m the only one,” Adams boasted.
According to Adams, the 25,000 guns — 16,00 of which were ghost guns — removed since his four years in office and, to him, represent lives saved from gun violence. He also states that about 5,200 firearms have been confiscated since January of this year.
“Let that sink in for a moment… 25,000 illegal guns, not able to feed the river of violence, we were able to dam that river with our actions in a world where just one gun can tear an entire community apart, we prevented 25,000 of those actions, keeping families whole,” Adams said.
According to Adams and Tisch, the gun removals helped greatly to reduce crime to what they cite as record-breaking levels. Over the last four years, the pair says shootings are down by 55% while homicides fell by 35.5%. Since last year, Tisch revealed that the city has seen 239 fewer people shot and 1016 fewer than in 2023.
Moreover, the commissioner said, the first 11 months of 2025 have also seen both the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims ever recorded in an 11-month span, beating the previous recorded low set in 2018 by 44 incidents.
“The expectation was clear: get the guns, and now, four years later, that focus has produced some real results, more than 25,000 guns seized by the New York City Police Department. That amounts to more than a dozen illegal firearms taken off of our streets every single day for 1,459 days. This is no accident; it is thanks to a focus strategy, to data-driven deployment, and to relentless police work carried out across the city, and the impact of that work is showing up in our crime numbers, with record-breaking results,” Tisch stated. “Their work is reflected in the milestones that we are making today, in historic reductions in crime and violence that we are seeing across the city.”
Adams also celebrated various violence interrupter groups from across the five boroughs, which he championed as instrumental in preventing retaliatory shootings, even going as far as to present them with keys to the city for their work.
With mere days left in his administration, when Adams was asked if he had any advice for incoming Mayor Mamdani regarding tackling crime and gun violence, he had this to say.
“If I could give a piece of advice, listen to Commissioner Tisch. I’m the only mayor who understands law enforcement. There was never a man in history who knew what needed to be done — I’m the only one. As much as I knew, I still listen to Jessica Tisch,” Adams said.
