New York City Mayor Eric Adams is, like any politician, dedicated primarily to keeping himself in office. To do that, he has to sell his accomplishments to the people of New York.

The media will give him the opportunity to do that, and that gives us an opportunity to see what he thinks is worth bragging about.

What tickles me, though, is what he’s chosen to brag about in this particular instance.

See, while he thinks this is him doing a great job, he’s actually kind of showing everyone how little New York gun control accomplishes.

From the moment I was sworn in as your mayor three years ago, our primary mission has been to create safer streets, safer subways, and a safer city for New York families. That means tackling the issue of gun violence head-on and working to get illegal guns out of the hands of criminals before they can cause more harm.

The numbers are in, and I am proud to say that our administration made significant progress in getting guns off our streets and out of our communities. As of last week, we have confiscated more than 20,000 illegal firearms since we first took office. That is 20,000 weapons that no longer threaten the safety of our neighborhoods, our families, and our children; 20,000 fewer chances that a New Yorker is shot or killed; and 20,000 rivers of violence dammed up before they flood our city. This statistic is more than just a large number — it’s a major milestone for our city and a clear shift in the right direction.

We’ve also taken 3,000 more guns off our streets from 2022 through 2024 than in the previous three-year period. And of the 20,000 guns we have seized, more than 1,400 of them have been identified as ghost guns — the untraceable firearms that are far too easy to obtain and assemble. We are removing dangerous guns off our streets and keeping our communities safe — and our strategy is working. 

The thing is, if gun control works so well, how did bad people get those 20,000 guns in the first place?

New York has universal background checks, “ghost gun” bans, a permit-to-purchase requirement for handguns, pretty strict concealed carry laws, mandatory storage laws, the works.

If all of that does what proponents say it does, how were there 20,000 illegal guns in the city in the first place?

“Oh, but they came from other states or where ghost guns.”

Sorry, but that doesn’t fly. First, only seven percent of those total firearms were “ghost guns,” so that doesn’t even hold water. 

Second,we tell gun control advocates saying they need a certain law in their state that this will be an issue, and they ignore that, so I’m not going to play with that argument. The implication of their refusal to listen is that they don’t believe that to be the case, so again, where did 20,000 illegal guns come from if gun control works?

The answer is, of course, that it doesn’t.

New York gun control laws don’t work, and the mayor is actually bragging about it, even if he doesn’t realize it.