NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams is meeting with several other mayors from around the country Wednesday at Gracie Mansion to discuss how to better tackle gun violence and to “send a strong message on the national level and the state level.”
Before the confab at the mayor’s official residence, Adams and three other mayors — St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and Little Rock, Ark. Mayor Frank Scott Jr. — spoke on Good Morning America to lay out some of their goals.
“We’re dealing with the same problem, a $9 billion industry that’s profits are turning profit into pain in our communities,” Adams said. “We want to mobilize, strategize, learn from each other and see best practices.”
The mayors who are meeting on Wednesday are members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Adams said one of their goals is to use a “centralized database to show where guns are coming from, who are the manufacturers.”
Creating such a database could serve as a tool in lawsuits against manufacturers from victims of gun violence and their families.
“Five manufacturers in this country are producing over 50% of the crime, the guns that are used in crimes,” Adams said. “We must learn from each other united as mayors.”
Last month, New York City Councilman Shaun Abreu introduced a bill that would require the NYPD and the mayor’s office to publicly identify the locations and details of firearms seizures, including information on the dealers who sell guns and where they operate. Abreu told the Daily News on Wednesday that he expects the bill will be approved by the full Council next month.
Jones described the mayors’ effort as a response to the federal government’s relative inaction on the issue. Last month, President Joe Biden signed off on the first significant gun control law in decades. The law incentivizes states to adopt red flag laws, which would pave the way for courts to remove guns from people considered a threat. But many gun control advocates say it’s too little, too late, especially in light of recent mass shootings like the ones in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas.
“If this were any other industry and it was as deadly, then the government would have already acted to make sure that we got rid of whatever was killing our citizens, and we haven’t seen that sort of action from the federal government,” Jones said. “We have to look at the root causes and look at other strategies to try to cure gun violence in our communities.”
Adams has been demanding more help from the feds for months as he’s faced a number of high-profile shootings in the city.
Earlier this week, Adams praised Biden for appointing a new head to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but on Wednesday he suggested more could be done on that front — in addition to the database he and other mayors are working on.
“We need more help from the federal government,” he said. “Let’s make sure we expand on the number of ATF agents. Let’s do information sharing for the first time. This database that we’re going to use where guns are coming from — we’re encouraging others to share this information.”
____
