Shootings have increased by 12.9% and the number of shooting victims has increased by more than 9% in the period between August 11 and September 8. The Post's anonymous police sources are blaming federal judge Shira Sheindlin's stop-and-frisk ruling for the uptick. “Shootings are going through the roof now because perps are not afraid to carry a gun,” a mysterious police source says. Would you believe there are serious problems with this line of reasoning?

First: The NYPD began dialing back the total amount of stops in 2012, long before Judge Scheindlin's ruling. In the first quarter of 2013, the NYPD made 99,788 stops, a 51% decline from the previous year. Then from April through June, police stops plunged to 58,088.

And despite the bizarre and all-too-convenient time period the Post uses as a metric (Who might have access to such a specific sliver of data in such a small window of time? And then pass it to the Post's police bureau chief? Who?) here are some figures the Mayor's Office released on September 9, 2013:

Through Sunday, September 8th, New York City has seen 84 fewer murders than at this point last year: 228 murders in 2013 compared to 312 murders in 2012—a decrease of 26.9 percent… Through Sunday, September 8th, the number of murders committed with firearms is down by 57 from last year: 131 in 2013 compared to 188 in 2012—a decrease of 30.3 percent.

Through Sunday, September 8th, New York City has seen 255 fewer total shootings than at this point last year: 774 shootings in 2013 compared to 1,029 shootings in 2012 - a decrease of 24.8 percent. [Emphasis ours]

Second: Stop & frisks are dismal at recovering weapons. According to the findings of fact used in Judge Scheindlin's ruling [PDF], just 0.1% of all stops yield firearms.

After the largest gun seizure in the city's history, NYPD Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg noted that one of the alleged gun-smuggling defendants told an accomplice over the phone that he was concerned about stop-and-frisk.

But he remedied the situation by transacting his business in a friendlier precinct where he knew he wouldn't be stopped. You would think suspicious behavior would attract the same degree of police attention no matter what neighborhood it occurs in, or what color a person's skin is. Yet the NYPD's statistics show the overwhelming majority of stop-and-frisks occur in a disproportionately small number of precincts and affect mainly young men of color. Apparently criminals know this, but why mess with perfection?