Op-Ed | Getting 20,000 illegal guns off our streets for a safer city

From the moment I was sworn in as your mayor three years ago, our primary mission has been to create safer streets, safer subways, and a safer city for New York families. That means tackling the issue of gun violence head-on and working to get illegal guns out of the hands of criminals before they can cause more harm.

The numbers are in, and I am proud to say that our administration made significant progress in getting guns off our streets and out of our communities. As of last week, we have confiscated more than 20,000 illegal firearms since we first took office. That is 20,000 weapons that no longer threaten the safety of our neighborhoods, our families, and our children; 20,000 fewer chances that a New Yorker is shot or killed; and 20,000 rivers of violence dammed up before they flood our city. This statistic is more than just a large number — it’s a major milestone for our city and a clear shift in the right direction.

We’ve also taken 3,000 more guns off our streets from 2022 through 2024 than in the previous three-year period. And of the 20,000 guns we have seized, more than 1,400 of them have been identified as ghost guns — the untraceable firearms that are far too easy to obtain and assemble. We are removing dangerous guns off our streets and keeping our communities safe — and our strategy is working.

For three years in a row, the number of homicides and shootings have both declined by double digits: homicides are down by almost 23 percent, and shootings are down by more than 42 percent. That means we’ve saved 268 additional lives and seen 1,500 fewer shooting victims.

And last year saw the lowest amount of gun violence in the history of Brooklyn, while overall crime plummeted by 15 percent in December across the entire city. Because of our steadfast focus on eradicating gun violence, New York City continues to be the safest big city in America.

As we begin the New Year, our priority remains the same: keeping New Yorkers safe by continuing to address gun violence and removing illegal firearms from our city. NYPD officers have already confiscated over 350 firearms in the first few weeks of 2025. But we can — and we will — go further.

In the last few months, we have seen random acts of violence that have shaken many New Yorkers. We all know safety is about more than just statistics — people must be safe and they must FEEL safe. Nothing does a better job in translating perception to reality than the presence of that familiar blue uniform. So, we are putting hundreds of additional police officers out on patrol, including two officers on every single subway during the overnight hours to keep New Yorkers safe.

That was my promise to you three years ago and continues to be my promise to you today. When others wanted to defund the police, I defended them, because fighting for your safety is what you elected me to do. And the NYPD will keep working hard — seizing guns, dismantling trafficking pipelines, and preventing shootings before they happen — to make New York City even safer.

We are also supporting efforts to stop recidivists from committing more crimes, building stronger bonds between the police and the communities they serve, and creating opportunities for young people to stay safe and find purpose. With initiatives like our Neighborhood Safety Teams and the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, we will continue to make the smart, upstream investments that dam the rivers of violence and prevent crime from happening in the first place.

As I said in my State of the City address earlier this month, we must make New York City the best place in the world to raise a family — and that starts with safer streets for our families to walk down, safer transit to ride on, and safer parks to play in. Every gun we take off our streets gets us another step closer to that goal. And every day, I will continue to work to end gun violence in our city and our nation.

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