Hundreds of alleged gun traffickers have been arrested and thousands of illegal firearms have been seized — including nearly 200 AR-15–style rifles — since a new round of federal gun control measures were passed last summer, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Monday.
The Democrat — who first introduced the legislation 14 years ago after Brooklyn high school student Nyasia Pryear-Yard was killed by a stray bullet from an illegal firearm — said the bill gave law enforcement the tools it needed to put gun runners behind bars.
“At the time, gun trafficking was not even a federal crime,” she said. “Law enforcement officials had to rely on a patchwork of weak, easily exploitable local statutes to prosecute offenders, and this … allowed traffickers to operate even in broad daylight in our parks, near schools or outside our homes without fear of any serious consequences.”
But the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — signed by President Biden in June 2022 — changed that, Gillibrand said during a press conference outside NYPD headquarters, announcing a report on the results of the legislation thus far.
Since its passage, authorities have charged more than 200 people in 20 states with gun trafficking and seized more than 1,300 firearms, including 190 AR-15s — the weapon of choice for mass shooters — and 151 ghost guns, she said.
Of those illicit firearms, 120 were in New York, the senator added. And there were nine defendants from the Empire State, including eight from New York City.
The law tightened background checks on the youngest gun buyers, closed loopholes for abusive partners, provided millions for mental health services and gave states incentive to pass red flag laws, among other initiatives.
At the time, Biden lauded the legislation as something that will “save lives.”
Of the $750 million the bill provided for mental health services, nearly $100 million went to New York, Gillibrand said.
The funds will pay for about 14,000 new mental health professionals in schools throughout the nation, including about 400 in New York, she said.
“You talk to any teacher or any parent … COVID did not go well for our kids,” the senator said. “The mental health of young people is not strong, they need support in our schools … Getting more mental health services into our grade schools and high schools, I think, will make our communities safer.”
During the press conference — which was also attended by four of the Big Apple’s five district attorneys — Gillibrand pointed to specific instances where authorities arrested traffickers who’d been moving guns directly linked to shootings in the metro area.
In one instance, cops nailed four members of a trafficking ring that ferried firearms to New York from Virginia along the so-called “Iron Pipeline,” which brings guns to the northeast from less restrictive southern states.
One of the guns — which a suspect unwittingly sold to an undercover NYPD officer in June 2022 — was linked to a shooting a year earlier in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Gillibrand said.
Another was used in a 2021 shooting in Canarsie, she added.
The co-conspirators sold the undercover cop at least 50 firearms before they were arrested in January, making them some of the earliest defendants prosecuted under the new law, the senator said.
She also cited another Big Apple bust in which authorities seized 51 guns from a group of alleged traffickers out of Ohio, and a New Jersey operation that took 28 ghost guns from members of the Latin Kings street gang.
“There are far too many illegal guns present in our streets, and every single one of them has the potential to endanger the members of our beautiful city,” Jason Savino, the NYPD assistant chief who commands the gun violence suppression division, said at the press conference.
“The good news is we’re making progress,” he added. “While even one shooting is far too many, year-to-date in New York City, over 300 fewer people were shot compared to the year prior. Until all gun violence is eliminated, we will remain relentless.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also lauded law enforcement’s accomplishments.
“We are really, really encouraged by where the numbers are going, but we know we have more work to do,” Bragg told reporters. “In Manhattan, our gun prosecutions are up 20%. We are focusing, in conjunction with the NYPD, on those who drive that violence.”
Gillibrand introduced the bill in 2009 after she met with the family of Pryear-Yard, an honors student hit by a stray bullet while out with friends at a dance party.
“Nyasia was about to graduate, she was on her way to U-Penn. She was a bright light whose life was cut short because of gun violence in her community,” Gillibrand said.
“As a New Yorker, I’ve always known if we can get illegal guns off the streets, lives will be saved,” the senator said, adding that she still wants to strengthen red-flag laws, ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.
“We want to keep focused on this one issue to do even more,” she continued. “I’m working on a bipartisan basis right now to get more resources for law enforcement to do these investigations and prosecutions.”