By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Tuesday announced that the NYPD has already removed more than 2,200 illegal firearms from Gotham streets since the beginning of 2025 — bringing the total number of firearms seized since the start of Adams administration to 22,016. The significant firearm seizure figure represents more than 3,000 additional illegal guns removed from City streets compared to the three years before Adams came into office, between 2019 and 2021 — all leading to a 53.9 percent decrease in shootings and a 41.4 percent decrease in homicides since Adams became mayor in 2022.
Last year marked the fourth-lowest year in recorded history for shooting incidents citywide, and from January through May 2025, shootings and homicides declined to historic lows, with homicides falling 27.3 percent to 112 homicides, and shooting incidents plummeting to 264, or declining 20 percent. In May 2025, shooting incidents decreased by 38.6 percent compared to the previous year, representing 41 fewer shooting victims, following a decrease of 23.1 percent in shootings in the first quarter of 2025 (January to March) — the lowest number of shooting incidents in New York City’s recorded history for any quarter.
Overall major crimes also continue to trend downward. In May 2025, there was a 4.9 percent decrease in major crime citywide, led by double digit declines in murder, which plummeted 45.5 percent, and burglary, which was down 12.5 percent. Significant declines continued in robbery, felony assault, and grand larceny, resulting in 3,128 fewer victims of major crime in New York City so far this year, when compared to the same period last year.
Out of the more than 22,000 guns seized since the beginning of the Adams administration, nearly 1,500 of them have been identified as ghost guns — unserialized, and therefore untraceable, firearms that are put together by components purchased either as a kit or as separate pieces or printed through 3-D printers, and that are fully functioning as fully-finished, serialized firearms. These untraceable firearms often end up in the hands of criminals, as well as underage purchasers. Incidents involving ghost guns reflect a dangerously escalating trend — one that the NYPD is leading the charge against. The NYPD recovered 17 ghost guns in 2018, 48 in 2019, 150 in 2020, 263 in 2021, 585 in 2022, 394 in 2023, 438 in 2024, and already 71 in only the first five months of 2025.
“Today, the mayor announced an unprecedented achievement: the lowest number of shootings and homicides in recorded history over the first five months of the year,” said Tisch. “Results like this never happen by accident, and certainly not at a time when the state’s criminal justice laws have made a revolving door out of our criminal justice system. Here’s how your mayor and your NYPD cops delivered the safest January–May for gun violence in New York City’s history: three-plus years of relentlessly going after guns on our streets and a data-driven policing strategy that puts more cops in the right places at the right times to do what they do better than anyone else in the world. We will not let up. Our summer violence reduction plan is bold and aggressive and designed to continue driving the same historic safety gains.”
