NYC mayor calls for ‘national response’ to rising violence after subway shooting

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) called for a “national response” to rising violence following a subway shooting that wounded more than a dozen people on Tuesday.

Adams told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview that increased violence is an issue affecting the entire country and said that while officials have recovered more than 1,800 guns in the last 3 1/2 months, the city needed some assistance.

“We’re going to continue to do our job, but there is some assistance that’s going to be needed in our city, such as an empowering ATF,” the mayor said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

“Bring in the ATF leader, as the president announced yesterday, making ghost guns illegal. There’s so many things that we could do to assist the cities across America, particularly New York City, to make sure that we’re a safe place for our residents,” he added.

Adams put the blame of rising violence in the city on “a revolving door criminal justice system” where those who are known to have committed criminal acts are still out in the public.

“We know that there’s a real challenge. Many of the people who are on our streets that have participated in dangerous acts — they have had a bottleneck in our court system,” Adams, a former police officer, said.

“They are not serving their time in prison like they should be. We witness what I call a revolving door criminal justice system, where too many people who are known to participate in criminal actions are still on our streets, and so it’s a combined effort, and we’re going to continue to do our part,” he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, officials said that at least 16 people were injured after a suspect opened a canister on a subway train car, filling the area with smoke and later opening fire. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said the suspect was still on the loose, and it was not immediately clear what the motive may have been. 

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House would do whatever it could to assist the city following the shooting.

The development comes one day after President Biden announced that the U.S. would be banning unlicensed gun manufacturing kits, known as ghost guns.

Adams noted to CNN in his interview that 10 percent of the 1,800 guns officials had recovered in the first part of 2022 were ghost guns.