Photo Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
“The blame lies with those in positions of power at gun companies,” Mayor Adams said. “They profit from products that end up in the hands of criminals.”
By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday delivered the following remarks, as prepared for delivery and edited for space, to the National Press Club on the media’s role in holding the gun industry accountable: I’m Eric Adams, mayor of New York City. I’m also a former police officer, co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and a responsible gun owner.
And I’m here at the National Press Club to talk about my defining mission as the mayor of America’s largest city: ending gun violence and stopping the scourge of illegal guns.
I have seen the destruction of gun violence up close. Horrific wounds. Shattered lives. Grieving families. The bodies of children in open caskets. The sea of blue outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral as we say goodbye to fallen officers. I have talked with those families, prayed with them, mourned with them. And every time, it breaks my heart. Not just because it is so tragic, but because it is so common.
Gun violence is not just happening in New York City. It is happening all over America. In our schools, our supermarkets, at our parades. It is a national shame, a national crisis. But this crisis did not happen by accident. It started in a meeting, with a memo, a marketing plan.
It started with those who ask, ‘we want to sell more guns. How are we going to do it?’
In other words, it started with greed.
Like the tobacco industry and the opioid manufacturers before them, gun companies took a dangerous product and marketed it to the masses. They used aggressive marketing to reach new consumers, including those who have no business owning a gun: irresponsible people, underage people, criminals, abusers. All to generate profit at any cost.
Their plan succeeded beyond our wildest nightmares. The gun industry rakes in nine billion dollars a year.
But America has paid the price in blood. The cost is more gun violence on our streets and in our homes. Increased hate crimes, deadlier domestic violence, higher rates of suicide. More fallen officers. More fearful elders. And more school shootings.
This is a business that will stop at nothing – not even the door of an elementary school – to keep making money. This isn’t a business model. This is blood sacrifice. And we must fight for our lives and our children not with weapons, but with the fierce light of truth. We must expose the lies of the gun industry and their lobbyists at the NRA the same way we exposed the lies of the tobacco industry and the opioid manufacturers. Their greed and irresponsible business practices have fueled the gun violence epidemic in this nation.
And they have used the power of their profits to shield themselves from accountability at every turn, spending millions to buy influence and change laws to protect themselves from legal action.
If the law did not protect the gun industry, we’d be able to learn about how they have decided to market directly to children, resisted common-sense safety technology to preserve profits, and knowingly developed products that are easier to conceal from law enforcement.
The blame lies with those in positions of power at gun companies. They profit from products that end up in the hands of criminals. They cover up their role in the deaths of innocent victims. They spend millions to mislead the public, create doubt, and shift blame. And at every turn, they block the industry reforms and legal solutions that could save lives.
