Police struggling to stem a rising wave of shootings in New York City are confronting a deep-seated subculture that glorifies guns.
He was 7 years old, standing in a bare room opening onto a patio in Brooklyn, when an uncle handed him a pistol that was twice as big as his hands. His uncle guided his finger to the trigger and pointed the barrel straight ahead.
A loud crack split the air, followed by the scent of gunpowder, he recalled. His uncle, his breath smelling of alcohol, said in the boy’s ear, “This is how you survive.”
Since that moment, the young man, now 21, said he had owned several guns and handled many more — he estimates about 50 — all of them illegal. They were tools he needed, he claimed, for self-preservation in Crown Heights, where some sections have seen a rise in crime.
“I got to keep my gun,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared arrest or street reprisals. “Cops want to kill me. Dudes want to kill me. I don’t know if I’ll be alive tomorrow.”
As 2020 has brought a perfect storm of turmoil to New York — the coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest and dwindling public resources in poor neighborhoods — young men like him have become a source of worry for the authorities.
The city has seen a sharp rise in gun violence. More than 1,730 people have been shot so far this year as of Nov. 29, double the number for the same period a year ago — a level of gun violence not seen in 15 years. Murders have also surged nearly 40 percent, to 420 so far this year from 304 in the same time period last year.
The police say feuds between street crews over turf and drug deals are driving most of the violence. A single gang feud in Brooklyn, for instance, has been blamed for 26 deaths. Those conflicts have been made worse by the pandemic’s economic and emotional toll on low-income families.
But the authorities said they are also grappling with a deep-rooted gun culture in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, where some young men carry firearms not just to commit crimes but also in a misguided attempt to protect themselves.
“People who want to carry these guns, they are a recipe for disaster,” said Rodney Harrison, the department’s chief of detectives. “Their mind-set is really detrimental to the city.”
A recent study by the Center for Court Innovation — “‘Gotta Make Your Own Heaven’: Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood in New York City” — found that young people who carry guns often say it is because they do not feel protected by authority figures: their parents, civic leaders, the police.
“They feel like they have to protect themselves, because the city and the infrastructure has completely abandoned them,” said one of the researchers, Elise White.
More than 80 percent of the 330 people interviewed told researchers that they have either been shot at or have fired a weapon at someone else. Nearly 90 percent said a family member or friend had been victim of gun violence, according to the study. Many of them obtained their illegal guns when they were as young as 14, according to researchers.
In recent weeks, the police have stepped up the number of arrests over illegal gun possession in an effort to try and curb the violence: In November, gun arrests more than doubled to 484 from 228 in the same month last year, according to police data. Citywide, those arrests are up 22 percent for the year so far compared with the same period last year.
“We want to identify the individuals pulling the trigger and recruiting younger people and bring them into custody,” Chief Harrison said.
Four young men who have obtained guns through illegal means agreed to talk to The New York Times on the condition that their names not be used because they feared arrest or reprisal from street rivals. The interviews were arranged by advocates who work to curb gun violence.
The men, some of whom had criminal records, spoke about the allure of firearms for self-defense and about the cycle of violence and personal loss that guns have brought them.
One young man said he bought his first gun after his father, who had shielded him, died abruptly. Another described the feeling of wanting a gun at an early age for fear that he would be fatally shot like his elementary school classmate.
Black market guns, usually bought in other states with lax laws and smuggled to New York City in cars, were easy to buy on the street, they said, where they cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000.
About 70 percent of guns seized in New York City crimes come from Southern states, the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, said at a news conference last month.
Mr. Gonzalez charged four men, including a subway operator, with conspiring to transport 44 firearms from South Carolina and Virginia. “These are killing machines,” Mr. Gonzalez said, holding up one of the smuggled weapons at the news conference.
Most of the gun carriers interviewed said that leaving the house with a handgun hidden in their pants or coats made them feel invincible, even if in the back of their minds the thought lingered that they might be killed. Their fear of being caught unarmed outweighed their anxiety about arrest, they said.
Two of the authors of the recent study, Basaime Spate and Anjelica Camacho, said guns have long been mythologized in the United States, equated in popular culture with self-reliance and power, and it was no different in densely populated cities.
“This is about America embracing the gun culture,” Mr. Spate said. “This is an American problem.”
The 21-year-old from Crown Heights whose uncle taught him to fire a gun said he didn’t have a stable home growing up. He moved from one relative’s couch to another in public housing in South Brooklyn until he became a teenager. “Was that normal?” he said. “I don’t know. That’s all I knew.”
His fear of a violent death started when he was in elementary school and learned that a boy who sat near him had been struck by a bullet meant for someone else.
“I knew then that either I was going to get someone out of here or someone is going to get me out of here,” he said. “My uncle was right.”
He obtained his first Glock pistol when he was about 13, stealing it from its owner, he said. Now years later, he spoke about losing four friends to gun violence so far this year, speaking in the matter-of-fact way soldiers talk about casualties of war.
“These young people think about death all the time,” Ms. White said. “They are living under a constant awareness of their mortality and the mortality of people around them.”
A 31-year-old warehouse worker who was laid off in March because of the pandemic said having a pistol “changes you.” He described how the cold barrel pressed against his skin made him feel stronger, taller. “You feel powerful,” he said.
He spent his formative years in a foster home with loving guardians and remembered crying when he was sent back to live with his mother in a public housing complex in East New York, Brooklyn. “I knew there was nothing but guns and trouble there,” he said.
He bought a gun for self-defense when he was 18, he said, after his father, whom he saw as his protector, died of colon cancer.
His brushes with gun violence over the years have included running away from gunfire aimed at him and members of his crew in a dispute over turf, a motivation he says he now finds absurd.
“We shoot each other over land that it is not ours,” he said. “It’s feeling that you want to have something. We don’t own a house. We can’t pay the rent. But this is my block, and you can’t come here.”
A 16-year-old from Brownsville, another Brooklyn neighborhood hit hard by the recent wave of gun violence, said he bought his first firearm, a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, after he and his friends began receiving threats from another group.
“I have to carry one, I got beefs,” the teenager said, his voice barely audible behind a face covering. “They shoot at my friends. So I have to shoot back.”
Other young men said they have carried guns without actually having to purchase one. A 20-year-old who lives in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn has relied on a system of borrowing what he calls a “block gun,” which is shared among several members of the same street crew.
If he has received a clear signal that an threat is imminent, he approaches a gang leader and tells him, “I’m in a situation, and I need to borrow it,” he said.
The authorities say block guns can also be rented on the street for as little as $100.
He has no criminal record, and he said he is counting down the days when he will turn 21 in the spring and will be able to buy a legal firearm.
He said he plans to use his gun only as a last resort, knowing the wrong move can cost somebody else his or her life, “You pull that trigger, somebody is dead,” he said. “And you can’t take that bullet out. It’s over.”
New York City has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. A person must apply for a license to carry a handgun and a permit to carry a shotgun or a rifle, both issued by the New York Police Department, and most applicants are only allowed to have a loaded gun in their residences or businesses.
A conviction for criminal possession of a weapon can lead to a sentence of between three and a half to 15 years in prison.
The young man from Crown Heights said he was arrested when he was 19 after the police found an illegal gun in his apartment. As a result, he said, he does not have the option to get a gun license to buy a legal weapon. Still, he illegally carries an unlicensed gun because he has seen friends killed in street disputes.
“You think somebody is going to come and save you?” he said. “No. You got to save yourself, you feeling me?”
Chief Harrison said the warlike mentality of some young men only leads to an endless cycle of violence. “We have laws in place that have to be followed,” he said. “Carrying illegal firearms is not the answer.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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