Under the Gun: How police efforts to get guns off the street have backfired

Stoneleigh Fellow Dan Semenza is featured in Amsterdam News’ Beyond the Barrel of the Gun Project series, which explores the policing of illegal gun possession in New York City, its impacts on targeted communities, and how community leaders are advocating for alternative approaches. 

For many years, illegal gun possession has been a particular area of focus for law enforcement. From specialized NYPD units tasked with searching for illegal guns, to new laws imposing mandatory minimum sentences for illegal gun possession, to separate courts designed to speed up gun possession cases, efforts to reduce gun violence in New York City have focused on seizing illegal guns and maximizing the punishment for those in possession of them.

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“Whether you’re looking nationally or state by state, you can often pinpoint a very small number of dealers that are driving a lot of the crime guns that are then being recovered,” said Daniel Semenza, Director of Research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.

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