Guns, Youth, and New York City

The crime rate in new York City has long been on the decline but in the last year or two there has been a trend upward. The recent economic downturn has caused the city to reduce the number of police in the NYPD to levels that have not been seen since the early 1990's. The current plan is to lower the number of cops to about 31,000 which is a decrease from 36,000 just two years ago. With this decrease there has been an increase in the number of violent crimes in the city committed with handguns especially among youthful offenders. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reports that there were 4043 guns that were confiscated by the police in NYC in 2007. From that figure 277 of those guns were taken from individuals who were under the age of 17. Another 814 were taken from suspects between 18-21 years old. 524 were taken from 22-24 year old's and an additional 780 were taken from people between the ages of 25-30.