“IN NEWS that flew slightly under the radar this week, a report published in The Record showed that gun confiscations in Paterson had jumped by roughly 70 percent last year, a promising sign amid more disturbing headlines about a rash of fatal shootings,” northjersey.com’s editorial Getting the Guns reminds readers. Seventy percent! Holy cop stop Batman! Yes Robin, but I remind you once again to follow your math teacher’s advice. Examine the absolute numbers involved rather than simply accept a percentage increase as a sign of a significant trend. Gosh Batman, you’re right! I keep doing that. How many guns are we talking about? Well, old chum . . .
As Joe Malinconico of the Paterson Press reports, statistics compiled by the state police show that the number of guns seized by authorities in the city went from 94 in 2013 to 162 last year. Only Newark, with 331 gun seizures, and Trenton, with 163, ranked ahead of Paterson in 2014.
Despite northjersey.com’s underlying, unspoken assumption that 162 fewer guns in Paterson, New Jersey equals less crime, I remain unconvinced that the haul had any appreciable effect on Paterson’s crime rate – 1,555 violent crimes in 2013 – or its overall gang problem. Last year, “the number of homicides was higher than at any other time in the past two decades.”
An even more granular reality check is in order. Going back to northjersey.com’s previous “under-the-radar report” on gun seizures, we learn that . . .
The statistics do not indicate where in Paterson the guns were seized, the type of the weapons that were taken, if they were loaded, and whether someone was arrested as part of the seizure.
It has become commonplace for city police officers to report that they found weapons when they arrest suspected drug dealers in Paterson. City officials also have put out more than a dozen press releases during the past six months announcing that police found stashed “community guns” with the help of residents’ tips. Often those guns are found hidden in garbage cans and vacant buildings.
Hmm. I remember writing something about New York City’s lack of prosecutorial zeal in firearms-related busts, where judges were skeptical of cops’ constant claims that they found a gun on a perp busted for drug offenses. Is it possible that the Paterson po-po, the gold standard of well-run, corruption-free policing, may have over-stated the whole gun seizure thing?
Guns aren’t the problem in Paterson. Drugs and gangs are. Oh, and corruption. The paper and police focus on gun seizures is the worst kind of anti-gun agitprop: the kind that prevents right-minded people from doing what needs to be done to protect innocent life.
“Community” guns? Tragic when an entire group of people cannot afford their own individual firearms.
Hey, at least it’s consistent with the common anti view on the 2A’s use of the words “the people” — i.e., that it’s a collective right, not an individual one.
Perhaps my local public library will start stocking Glocks.
Crypto-Marxist guns, I’ll bet.
I might be able to support “Obamaguns”. Inexpensive carbines or pistols, even SBRs specially authorized because black. For everyone who asks, including a couple dozen rounds.
““Community” guns? Tragic when an entire group of people cannot afford their own individual firearms.”
Affording them isn’t the issue. By not having possession of one when arrested makes it safer for them.
They’ll retrieve it when they need to settle a business problem or disrespect issue and then stash it again…
As Barney says: “Sharing is Caring”…
Guns aren’t the problem in Paterson. Drugs and gangs are. Oh, and corruption. The paper and police focus on gun seizures is the worst kind of anti-gun agitprop…
Rarely does that level of corruption exist without the local media being neck deep in it.
Anybody else do their best Adam West impersonation while reading this?
I didn’t do it. But I heard it…
The mayor from Family Guy?
New Jersey — where New Yorkers go to dump their garbage. And New Jersey welcomes them, because New Jersey always appreciates a better class of garbage.
And don’t even get me started about Camden.
If New Jersey is the Armpit of the Nation, Camden is its anus.
Oh, i know Camden.
That’s why I mentioned it to you on the other thread…
It was real rough 30 years ago and I’ve been told it hasn’t improved.
If you’ve seen the movie ‘I am Legend’ it captures the character of Camden well.
Lol try Newark. It’s lovely this time of year. You can really smell the exhaust marajuana and gunshot residue in the air in the summer months. There is also an 80% chance of corruption on any given day.
Camden is a suburb of Philly and it still is really bad. Newark and Paterson aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, but the news makes them seem like they are still war zones.
This man speaks the truth.
They are still bad, don’t get me wrong. But I feel that Newark was way worse during the crack epidemic/90’s.
Doesn’t change the fact that Newark/Camden/Paterson/Trenton/Atlantic City are where the state should be concentrating their efforts. They should worry less about criminalizing a fuel stop on your way to the range and more about problems in all the big cities.
The Camden Aquarium is very nice to visit. To improve safety of visits, they asked the Navy for help. Being it is Camden, they sent a bbs – the Missouri Class battleship USS New Jersey. If Camden was any worse, they next optio. Would be to “nuke it from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.” For Philadelphia, the crime is less, so they got the Maine’s sister ship USS Olympia from the Spanish-American War.
NOTICE TO NEW JERSEY CITIZENS! The beatings will continue until morale improves.
There’s a certain joy to living in modern times. We get to see firsthand, as it unfolds, exactly how countries like Germany turned into fascist dictatorships.
I’ve never been to any of these places but from an outside view, firearms don’t seem to be of any problem at all. They are simply an object of choice for criminals to get a job done they way they want. The area evidently has many social troubles and underlying causes of crime. But the crime certainly is not firearms. In this way the area is the same as most any part of the US.
well, I feel much safer now about that shiite-hole. Maybe i will move to NJ!
NJ marketing: come for the high taxes, stay for the violent crime!
Kiss her where it smells, take her to New Jersey!