Imagine 52,000 guns.
That’s how many guns, once belonging to police officers across the country, were retrieved from crime scenes between 2006 and 2022. How many of those crime scenes were in New York City? And how many of those guns used to belong to the officers of the New York Police Department?
We are a minister and a rabbi here in New York, leaders of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, who each have too many stories to tell about how we and our congregants have been personally impacted by gun violence. We have buried congregants, friends, and family members who were killed by gunfire. In many cases, those guns were bought or stolen by shooters who took advantage of the glut of guns in our cities and counties.
According to data obtained in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, between 2006 and 2022, more than 52,000 guns formerly belonging to police officers were used to commit crimes against civilians and members of law enforcement. Instead of being melted down or destroyed, the weapons were sold.
Of the many maddening aspects of the scourge of the gun violence epidemic in America, this ranks up there with the most maddening. While the issue of gun violence is complicated and while many responses are debatable, this trend is neither. And the next NYPD commissioner and the next mayor should make sure that this infuriating pattern is ended and that the NYPD becomes a leader in this arena.
The Reveal podcast released an episode in July 2024 on how tens of thousands of cop guns have ended up in the hands of criminals. Since then, more than a dozen law enforcement agencies across the country, including the New York State Police, have stopped reselling their used firearms or are reviewing their policies.
The New York Police Department buys more weapons than any law enforcement agency outside of the federal government. Which means that the department has massive purchasing power when it comes to the companies it does business with.
We know that the department has said it doesn’t trade in its service weapons, and that’s a good start. But the department has consistently refused to use the leverage that its purchasing power provides to insist that gun makers act more responsibly.
We have met with past commissioners and assistant commissioners. We have described how the NYPD could insist that Glock and other gun makers integrate gun safety technology into all future weapon manufacturing. We have quoted the statistics on how guns acquired by criminals end up creating chaos in our communities. We have cited the studies that describe how guns in households, lacking state-of-the-art gun safety technology, have ended up in the hands of children who often harm themselves or siblings.
In an era of ever-modernizing smartphones and other devices, we have argued for the integration of already available high-tech controls into weapons creation. We have reminded them that we have always given the NYPD the credit it deserves for the dramatic reduction in homicides in our city, from a peak of 2245 in 1990 to 377 last year.
Our leaders were instrumental in working with local precincts to drive those dreadful numbers down and keep them down. But now is not the time to stop or lose focus. In recent years, high level NYPD officials have listened, nodded sympathetically, and then done nothing.
The candidates for mayor are staking their claims for how they’ll keep New Yorkers safe should they be elected. An easy and impactful move they should commit to is this: insist that the NYPD requires accountability from the companies it purchases weapons from to help ensure that cop guns everywhere are destroyed rather than sold to criminals and that gun safety options are tested and integrated into future NYPD purchases.
Our faith traditions teach us not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbors. When our elected officials and those tasked with keeping us safe do nothing while the manufacturers of weapons sell retired service weapons to criminals, they are doing worse than just standing idly by. They are enabling mayhem that is often avoidable.
If our next mayor expects us to trust them when they say they’ll do what’s necessary to keep New Yorkers safe, this step is one way to prove it.
Brawley, a pastor, and Mosbacher, a rabbi, are leaders in the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation network in New York City.
