The time to fight gun violence is now

A major increase in gun crime has been reported in the North Bronx in recent months. An August shooting incident in front of the An Beal Bocht Café has brought this issue even closer to home. 

Such intense increases are what motivated Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., along with several colleagues in the City Council, to introduce legislation guaranteeing community access and mandating a community notification requirement within the City’s gun offender registry. 

To also try to combat this increase, Council Member Andy King, Council Member Ritchie Torres and I have asked Commissioner Bratton to bring ShotSpotter to the 47th and 52nd police precincts. 

In order to begin eliminating gun violence from our neighborhoods, we must attack this issue as a community. Making an online gun control registry available to the public is step one of a two part process that has been proposed to tackle this recent increase of gun crime. 

Similar to the sex offender registry, the proposed public registry will consist of a list of individuals within the community who have been convicted of gun crimes. Available information would include the offender’s name, the street that he/she lives on, a physical description, crime the offender was convicted of and their sentence. Offenders can only be removed after their records are kept clean for at least four years. 

By making this information public, we are telling those that have been convicted of a gun crime that they are no longer just being watched by police, but by everyone. The gun offender registry will be easily accessible to the public and act as a safety measure for families. Local residents would also be able to sign up for e-mail notifications whenever an offender moves into their area. 

The second part of this process is implementing ShotSpotter technology into neighborhoods that have the highest rates of gun crimes, including the 47th and 52nd police precincts.