SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Police Department is raising alarms over the influx of illegal firearms into New York State, attributing the issue to guns being purchased legally in other states and then transported across state lines. Syracuse Police Chief Joe Cecile emphasized the gravity of the situation following four shootings this week.
“I think we take the steps we’ve always taken. She’s put more police on the street, do proactive work, take guns off the street. But it’s not just a police problem here,” said Cecile.
Data analysis from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reveals a troubling trend: in 2014, New York State recovered approximately 7,500 firearms at crime scenes. By 2023, that number had surged to around 11,400. The ATF reports that many of these guns originate from states such as Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. Over the past decade, the number of guns from these states recovered in New York has nearly doubled, with Georgia seeing a near tripling of firearms traced back to it.
“Many of them are guns that are purchased legally in states where you can purchase them and then run across the border where it becomes illegal. We have a graph, we go over every two weeks that shows a pie chart that shows exactly where they’re coming from when we recover them,” Cecile said…