Yet more teens killing teens - as Hochul & Co. stand by flawed Raise the Age law

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://nypost.com/2023/07/19/yet-more-teens-killing-teens-as-hochul-co-
stand-by-flawed-raise-the-age-law/

New Yorkers are right to be horrified by the explosion of gun violence
involving teen shooters and victims over the past few days.

Alas, they can count on that violence to continue, because Gov. Kathy
Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie simply refuse to lift a finger to
repeal the Raise the Age law.

Consider a bloody eruption of gunfire over just a 12-hour period this
week:

Faridun Maulonou, 15, was mortally wounded when shots rang out on a
Brooklyn street Monday. Police say the shooter is 17.
Another teen was ID’d as one of two suspects in a brazen daylight shooting
in The Bronx that wounded two brothers, 6 and 3.
A 16-year-old boy was shot and injured by a gunman on a Citi Bike.
Three teens aged 15, 16 and 17 were struck by bullets in the heart of
Times Square on Monday night.
The July 4 holiday weekend similarly brought a spasm of gun violence
involving young men and even younger shooting victims.

It’s no coincidence that since 2018, when the misguided Raise the Age law
hiked the age of criminal responsibility to 18 — rendering 16- and 17-
year-olds generally ineligible for prosecution (and consequences) as
adults — youth gun violence has skyrocketed.

Last year, a bombshell NYPD analysis found the number of adolescent
shooters and victims in the city had tripled since 2017, just before Raise
the Age became law.

The nonpartisan Citizens Crime Commission notes that even the average age
when children first pick up illegal guns has dropped from 16 or 17 to just
12 or 13.

Per tragic new NYPD data, 58 kids under 18 were shot during the first six
months of 2023.

That’s down from the same periods in 2022 and 2021, where 89 and 70 kids,
respectively, were shot. Yet it’s still 57% higher than in 2020, when 37
teens were struck by bullets in the first half of year, and 2019, when 35
were gunned down.

Oh, and the victims are disproportionately black or Hispanic.

Young Brooklyn gunslingers told researchers with the nonprofit Center for
Justice Innovation that they carried guns out of fear. Yet, notably, the
threat often comes from other teens, including those now shielded from
serious consequences by Raise the Age.

Even Democratic district attorneys, like progressive David Soares in
Albany County or Michael McMahon in Staten Island — i.e, the experts who,
unlike lawmakers, deal with the reality of crime on the streets — have
demanded the law be fixed.

“We need our legislators and policymakers to deal with reality and get
tough on these young people by restoring consequences for their actions,”
Staten Island DA Michael McMahon argued in The Post last month.

When will progressives start caring more about saving kids who are shot
than letting the shooters slide?


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Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
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Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
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President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
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