New York Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio has no solution for increased crime rates

From the New York Post:

Mayoral front-runner Bill de Blasio offered no real solution Thursday when confronted with statistics revealing an alarming rise in gun violence that followed a federal judge’s ruling against the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program. 

The Democratic nominee opposes the practice, but when asked point blank how he intends to keep the city safe, he would speak only in generalities. 

“We must restore the relationship between the police and community,” he said without explaining how that could be accomplished. 

As first reported by The Post Thursday, shootings were up 13 percent and gun seizures were down more than 17 percent in the 28-day period ending Sept. 8 as compared with the same period in 2012. 

But de Blasio insisted “nothing has changed in the approach to policing” since Manhattan federal Judge Shira Scheindin’s Aug. 12 decision. . . .

Percent of NYC's adult population with handgun permits

With the shooting at the Empire State Building on Friday, I thought that I would show how hard it is to own or carry a handgun is in New York City.  There are 21,243 people in New York City with handgun permits.  With an adult population of 6,464,009 adults in 2012, that comes to a rate of about 0.3%.  Yet, only a fraction of these people are allowed to carry a concealed handgun.  In 2011, there were "about 4,000" permit holders, just 0.062%.  To put it differently, that is about 1 in every 2,570 adults.  And these aren't the adults that you would typically see just walking down the street.  The list included: Donald Trump Jr., Robert DeNiro, and Ronald Lauder.  As Bloomberg.com reported last year, "In New York City, it’s nearly impossible for most applicants to get concealed-carry permits."

The New York Post had a list in April 22, 2012 of those with permits to own a handgun, and they were quite prominent individuals.

Ronald Lauder: Worth $3.3 billion, No. 103 on Forbes 

Donald Trump: Worth $2.9 billion, No. 128 on Forbes 400 

Joseph Sitt: Coney Island developer with assets of $1 billion 

Andrew Farkas: Island Capital CEO used to employ Andrew Cuomo. 

Richard Fields: Hard Rock casino mogul 

Howard Stern: Recently inked $400 million deal with Sirius 

John Catsimatidis: Gristedes CEO worth $2 billion, No. 212 on Forbes 

John Mack: Former Morgan Stanley CEO 

Larry Gluck: Real-estate mogul owns Independence Plaza and heads Stellar Management. 

Adam Rose: Owner of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. 

Isaac Perlmutter: Marvel comics CEO worth $1.9 billion, No. 263 on Forbes. 

Tommy Mottola: Bronx-born recording exec worth $100 million 

George Klein: Real-estate mogul, CEO of Park Tower Group 

Ivan Seidenberg: Former Verizon CEO made $62 in 2009-2011 

Dana Duneier: CEO of Madison Avenue jeweler Clyde Duneier 

Albert Fried: Managing director of venerable Wall Street firm Albert Fried & Company. 

Martin Goodstein: Founder of Goodstein Management 

Donald Trump Jr.: First son of The Donald works for the Trump Organization. 

Eric Trump: Third son of Donald, he’s also in the family biz.

Note that the killer at the Empire State Building, Jeffrey Johnson, was not a concealed handgun permit holder.

Police say Johnson used a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun -- which held eight rounds -- and was carrying extra ammunition in his briefcase. He purchased the weapon legally in 1991 in Florida, but did not have a permit to carry it in New York City. . . .

Nor did he have a permit to even have the gun in New York City.

A loaded magazine was found in Johnson's briefcase. Johnson legally bought the gun in Florida in 1991, but he didn't have a permit to possess it in New York City, authorities said. . . . .

Despite another shooting in a gun-free zone, New York politicians issued calls for more gun control within three hours of the shooting. From the New York Daily News:

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman: “For those of us in government, and in law enforcement, the news of yet another mass shooting so close on the heels of the massacres at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and in Aurora, Colorado, should make it crystal clear that our current laws have failed to protect the public from gun violence. We must redouble our efforts to protect public safety so that New Yorkers don’t have to live in fear of the next deadly attack.” 

Rep. Charlie Rangel: "We must unite to focus our policies on enacting stricter gun control laws" . . . 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver: "today's incident points to the need for sensible gun laws that ensure the safety and security of all." 

State Sen. Michael Gianaris: “It is long past time to fix our gun laws to prevent future tragedies from occurring.” 

State Sen. Jose Peralta: "The tragedy is yet another horrific reminder of the urgent need to act to curb gun violence and end the bloodshed on our streets." 

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer: "We must redouble our efforts to pass tougher gun laws . . . ." 

The New Republic had this headline within a few hours of the Empire State Building shooting: "In Wake of Empire State Building Shooting, Will Politicians Finally Get Serious About Gun Control?" 

How useful are NYC's crime numbers?

From the New York Times "NYPD Leaves Offenses Unrecorded to Keep Crime Numbers Down" (Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein, December 30, 2011):

Crime victims in New York sometimes struggle to persuade the police to write down what happened on an official report. The reasons are varied. Police officers are often busy, and few relish paperwork. But in interviews, more than half a dozen police officers, detectives and commanders also cited departmental pressure to keep crime statistics low.

While it is difficult to say how often crime complaints are not officially recorded, the Police Department is conscious of the potential problem, trying to ferret out unreported crimes through audits of emergency calls and of any resulting paperwork.

As concerns grew about the integrity of the data, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, appointed a panel of former federal prosecutors in January to study the crime-reporting system. The move was unusual for Mr. Kelly, who is normally reluctant to invite outside scrutiny.

The panel, which has not yet released its findings, was expected to focus on the downgrading of crimes, in which officers improperly classify felonies as misdemeanors.

But of nearly as much concern to people in law enforcement are crimes that officers simply failed to record, which one high-ranking police commander in Manhattan suggested was “the newest evolution in this numbers game.” . . .

The article then contains a long list of examples where crimes weren't recorded by the police. This next point is something that every economist would understand;

Despite the new guidelines, some critics say subtle tweaks in police protocol offer opportunities to avoid taking reports. In 2009, the department came up with a new policy that might seem inconsequential: Robbery victims would have to go to the station house to give their reports directly to a detective or patrol supervisor.

The intent was to get an investigator on the case as quickly as possible, but one police commander said supervisors were aware that another consequence could be that fewer crimes would be reported.

The policy was restored to its original form last year, with uniformed officers once again allowed to take the initial report of a robbery. “A police report wouldn’t get made because they make you wait in the police station for hours,” one commander said. Eventually, he added, the crime victim would give up and leave.

"Young Scalia carried rifle while riding N.Y. subway"

Some history confirming what I have written about before. From the AP:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia fondly remembers carrying a rifle around New York City as a boy and says outdoorsmen should attack the idea that guns are only used for crimes. . . .

"The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed," Scalia told the audience of about 2,000.

"I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms," said Scalia, noting that as a youth in New York City he was part of a rifle team at the military school he attended.

"I used to travel on the subway from Queens to Manhattan with a rifle," he said. "Could you imagine doing that today in New York City?" . . .