By Larry Keane

New York City is a gun control utopia, where benevolent politicians including Gotham’s mayor are hell-bent on making it as difficult as possible for guns to be a part of a free society. Criminals, though, seem to be running rampant.

New York’s gun control is making New York City a living hell, and not just for gun owners. It’s turning the city’s streets into murder zones where innocent children cannot even walk down the street with their parents. That’s because New York’s politicians continue to assign blame to the gun – instead of the criminal illegally wielding it. They focus on the object, not the criminal conduct.

Just this past weekend, New York City experienced 23 criminal shootings, two of which resulted in deaths. Among those wounded was a six-year-old boy, his mother and three others.

New York City’s Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio called it a “peaceful weekend.”

His audacious statement came on the heels of the New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea’s announcement the city topped a 25-year high of gun-related arrests. Between August 31 and Sept. 6, 160 arrests were made in that one week alone. Commissioner Shea explained that 436 arrests were made in a 28-day period ending Sept. 6, up 116 from the 320 arrests made for the same time period last year.

This is New York gun control. The inmates aren’t running the asylum. They’re running the city.

No Pill For That Ill

Mayor de Blasio is the proof. He has been more interested in publicity photo ops painting streets than providing leadership and safety for his fellow citizens.

Mayor de Blasio claims that criminal violence will be cured with a coronavirus vaccine. Seriously?

“We are dealing with a challenge we’ve never seen in the city,” he said in response to a reporter’s question about ongoing crime. “It is, thank God, temporary … there will be a vaccine, there will be a turnaround.” Tell that to the thousands of residents fleeing Gotham for safer communities.

Never mind New Yorkers have endured more than three months of unrelenting violence where an innocent man was gunned down while walking his daughter across the street. After that crime, Mayor de Blasio said it was the fault of the coronavirus, subsequent lockdowns, economic hardships and increasingly warmer temperatures.

“This is directly related to coronavirus,” Mayor de Blasio said. “This is a very serious situation. As we’re getting into warmer and warmer weather, we’re feeling the effects of people being cooped up for months, the economy hasn’t restarted – we have a real problem here.”

No Cops. No Rights

Mayor de Blasio doesn’t understand he has a duty to stop the criminal violence ravaging the city and its residents. Instead, he scapegoats. He shifts blame. He ignores what everyone else can see. Even New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted him for failing to contain crime as it spiraled out of control.

“I believe the mayor underestimates the scope of the problem. I believe he underestimates the duration of the problem, and I don’t think they’ve used enough police to address the situation,” Gov. Cuomo said. “You have 38,000 police officers. Deploy them. Give them support. On the video tape, to me, you see a lot of looting, and not enough police presence.”

Mayor de Blasio demurred. He even turned away an offer of help from the National Guard.

Instead, in July, Mayor de Blasio and the New York City Council shifted $1 billion from NYPD’s budget. A former NYC Police Commissioner said the move “cut the heart and soul out of the NYPD.”

The move, though, is disheartening to New Yorkers who trusted Mayor de Blasio years before when he said New Yorkers don’t need guns to keep themselves safe. They could rely on police.

“Everyone deserves to be safe,” Mayor de Blasio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “The answer is not for everyone to have a firearm – any more than the answer is not for every teacher to have a firearm.”

Instead of police, security and rights, New Yorkers in Mayor de Blasio’s gun control utopia have only one thing – criminals freely running the streets.