State Senator Eric Adams has been a vocal advocate for tighter gun laws. Last year he purchased some 30-round bullet magazines at an upstate gun store to demonstrate how easy it is to load an assault rifle with rapid-fire rounds, and he also released a video warning constituents that kids are stashing drugs and guns all over their parents' homes. Yesterday he drove upstate to buy an assault rifle and high-capacity bullet magazines, then stood on the border of the Bronx and Yonkers to emphasize how easy it is to exploit loopholes in New York's gun laws. At his side was a masked man brandishing an assault rifle. Now that's a press conference!
In NYC it's illegal to buy or sell high-capacity assault rifle bullet magazines, but they're legal in the rest of the state, rendering the NYC law essentially useless. Adams has, for years, been trying to close this loophole with legislation that would make the high-capacity magazines illegal statewide. In the wake of the massacre in an Aurora movie theater—where the alleged killer used a 100-round magazine—there's talk of such a ban nationwide, but the NRA has Democrats shitting themselves with fear.
"We display these lethal weapons on Broadway [in Yonkers, just outside the Bronx border] to keenly portray that this must be the final curtain call to the production and distribution of these high-capacity weapons,” Adams, a former cop who co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, told reporters yesterday. As for the NRA, the group released this statement in response to the Aurora shooting: "There will be an appropriate time down the road to engage in political and policy discussions." And here's a fun fact: According to the NYPD there are approximately 57,300 gun permits currently issued in NYC.
