Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday pleaded with parents to become more involved in their children’s lives, by confronting them about their knowledge of potentially criminal behavior.
He spoke one day after a mass shooting in Texas where an 18-year-old gunman killed at least 19 children and two teachers. His remarks also come as police report a dramatic spike in weapons being recovered from students in city schools.
“We're asking parents to sit down tonight and have an honest conversation with their children to save the lives of their children,” Adams said during a press conference at police headquarters.
Next to the mayor was a table that displayed three guns confiscated from city public schools last week. One of them, a .380 caliber semi-automatic weapon, was found in a 13-year-old boy’s backpack, which was searched after a middle school teacher overheard a conversation among students, the mayor said.
Overall, the seizure of weapons in the city’s public schools has skyrocketed since the pandemic began. As of last week, more than 5,500 weapons, including knives, box cutters, and tasers were discovered — a 124% increase since the 2018-2019 school year, according to the NYPD.
Guns make up a small fraction of those weapons, but their presence in schools has also grown. Since the start of the school year, 20 guns have been seized from the city’s public schools, police said. In the school year before the pandemic began, only one gun was confiscated.
Police say this gun was seized in a city school
Adams, has pledged to curb gun violence as part of a larger goal of reducing crime. He has previously said parents need to step up their role in their children’s lives as gun violence has increasingly involved both underage victims and shooters. Last week, an 11-year-old girl in the Bronx died from shots that were fired by a 15-year-old boy.
Saying that mobilizing parents was the “missing piece” of the solution, he added, “This is not blaming parents.”
Adams also said he would remake a 2011 video in which he walks families through a search process to uncover guns and drugs in their children’s rooms. He first spoke of his plan last month and has repeatedly chided critics for ridiculing the initiative.
We have to stop living like the way it ought to be and live like the way it is. Guns are in the hands of our children.
“Should we have to do that? No, we should not,” he said during Wednesday’s press conference. “But we have to stop living like the way it ought to be and live like the way it is. Guns are in the hands of our children.”
Youth advocates have argued that such tactics risk breaking the trust between parents and their children.
Adams also continued to blame social media for spreading videos of young drill rappers, who he accused of glorifying gun violence. At one point, he played an Instagram video which features a group of youths rapping and holding guns. He said the video had 275,000 views.
The mayor has previously called for social media companies to ban the genre from their platforms.
Schools Chancellor David Banks, who joined the mayor at the press conference, said he planned to convene meetings with school officials and families to discuss new system-wide approaches to school safety.
He said one idea proposed by the principals’ union was locking school doors after students arrive.
“We can identify who's coming into our schools,” he said. “It shouldn't be such easy access.”
Outside of focusing on the home, Adams also called on Republican senators who have opposed stricter gun laws to develop the “moral courage” to reserve their stance. He also urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to declare New York’s concealed carry law — which requires gun owners to show “proper cause” to carry a handgun in public — unconstitutional.
Oral arguments in the case were heard in November. A ruling is expected soon.
