Low-energy President Biden struggled not to look at his watch in New York on Thursday as he sleepwalked through a pat speech about crime that failed to rise to the moment in any respect. New York City must again go it alone.
The visit was supposedly to help Mayor Eric Adams turn the tide, but the prez didn’t give him a thing that matters. This was barely even “Message: I care.”
He didn’t breathe a word about a single real solution to the city’s rising violence and crime. Background checks, assault weapon bans, red-flag laws have nothing to do with what’s plaguing minority neighborhoods here and around the country.
Oh, Joe is going to help try to shut down the flow of illegal guns. Go ahead, but the “iron pipeline” is a red herring. The reason weapons are flowing in faster than ever is because everyone knows they’re safe to carry.
Heck, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg won’t even jail you for using a gun in a robbery unless you actually fire it.
And “violence interrupters” won’t do much when gangs are actively recruiting teens because the Raise the Age law means they’ll only go to Family Court if they are caught carrying, even if they refuse to rat on the gang-bangers.
Not a word from Biden on the issues where Adams, and New Yorkers in general, need his help. Nothing on the lunatic no-bail law, which doesn’t let judges jail even clearly dangerous perps or chronic repeat offenders. Nothing on the gang-empowering Raise the Age law.
Nothing on the corrosive influence of police defunders (whom Biden cheered while campaigning in 2020) or Bragg’s lunacy.
If Biden really wanted to boost Adams’ agenda (and turn around his own failing political fortunes), he could have called out the extremists in his own party who block even the most minor reforms. But he’s still making apologies for authoring the 1994 crime bill that ushered in two decades of reduced violent crime and greater public safety across America.
The conceit (as one Biden official told News4) is that the pandemic caused the US urban crime wave, but at most, it just accelerated trends already underway, enabled by ill-written reforms and a wave of anti-prosecution prosecutors winning office.
New York City, and the nation, got safe because true reformers like Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton showed that it is possible to get guns off the street, to set community expectations that crime wouldn’t pay.
After two decades of success, too many “leaders” (and voters) decided we didn’t have to do that anymore. Crime won’t turn around unless we get leadership willing to call out that horrific mistake.
Adams can’t do it alone. Too bad he can’t get a visit from the Joe Biden of 1994.
