NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Mayor Eric Adams joined MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" on Tuesday to discuss gun violence after last week’s mass shooting at a Texas school left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“This problem is not a local problem,” Adams said. “It’s not a New York, it's not an Atlanta or Chicago problem. This is a national crisis, and we have not been attacking this as a national crisis.”
“New York City, we have strong gun laws that we may lose through the Supreme Court,” the mayor said. “But we have strong gun laws. But when you allow guns to be purchased in Georgia, and Atlanta, and other localities, and then they're brought into the inner city through the iron pipeline, that's a real problem.”
Adams is joining a number of New York state mayors virtually Tuesday to kick off Gun Violence Awareness Month, which starts June 1.
Last week, the 10 co-chairs of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a nonpartisan coalition consisting of more than 1,000 current and former mayors, called on the U.S. Senate to take concrete action on gun safety. Adams is among the co-chairs and put emphasis on how to deal with ghost guns.
“We have to deal with the ghost gun issue,” the mayor said. “Right now, laws have not caught up to the creativity of bad guys.”
Ghost guns lack commercially-applied serial numbers so they are untraceable. The weapon is made privately by putting parts together.
“Ghost guns that are disassembled, we need to treat them as real guns. We need to look at the shipment of the parts, that is very important to do,” Adams said.
The annual number of firearms manufactured tripled over the past two decades, according to a report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Domestic gun production increased from 3.9 million in 2000 to 11.3 million in 2020.
The Supreme Court is also getting ready to issue a ruling in a dispute over whether New York state’s strict concealed carry law violates the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” There is speculation the court may strike down the law.
“We have to really look at the ruling that's about to come out of the Supreme Court,” Adams said. “Open carry is a crisis. Can you imagine being on the 4 train as someone openly carrying a firearm?”
The mayor noted that during his time as mayor, police have taken more than 2,500 guns off the street and continue to have drills with school safety officers.
The mayor also called on the social media industry to be part of the solution after recent shootings involved gunmen that had been active online.
“We need the social media industry to be part of this, using artificial intelligence to identify those who are using dangerous terms, so we can conduct proper background checks.” Adams said. “Not only what's on paper and documented but what they're doing in social media.”
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