New Yorkers are right to be horrified by the explosion of gun violence involving teen shooters and victims over the past few days.
Alas, they can count on that violence to continue, because Gov. Kathy Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie simply refuse to lift a finger to repeal the Raise the Age law.
Consider a bloody eruption of gunfire over just a 12-hour period this week:
The July 4 holiday weekend similarly brought a spasm of gun violence involving young men and even younger shooting victims.
It’s no coincidence that since 2018, when the misguided Raise the Age law hiked the age of criminal responsibility to 18 — rendering 16- and 17-year-olds generally ineligible for prosecution (and consequences) as adults — youth gun violence has skyrocketed.
Last year, a bombshell NYPD analysis found the number of adolescent shooters and victims in the city had tripled since 2017, just before Raise the Age became law.
The nonpartisan Citizens Crime Commission notes that even the average age when children first pick up illegal guns has dropped from 16 or 17 to just 12 or 13.
Per tragic new NYPD data, 58 kids under 18 were shot during the first six months of 2023.
That’s down from the same periods in 2022 and 2021, where 89 and 70 kids, respectively, were shot. Yet it’s still 57% higher than in 2020, when 37 teens were struck by bullets in the first half of year, and 2019, when 35 were gunned down.
Oh, and the victims are disproportionately black or Hispanic.
Young Brooklyn gunslingers told researchers with the nonprofit Center for Justice Innovation that they carried guns out of fear. Yet, notably, the threat often comes from other teens, including those now shielded from serious consequences by Raise the Age.
Even Democratic district attorneys, like progressive David Soares in Albany County or Michael McMahon in Staten Island — i.e, the experts who, unlike lawmakers, deal with the reality of crime on the streets — have demanded the law be fixed.
“We need our legislators and policymakers to deal with reality and get tough on these young people by restoring consequences for their actions,” Staten Island DA Michael McMahon argued in The Post last month.
When will progressives start caring more about saving kids who are shot than letting the shooters slide?
