The Guns of Brooklyn

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Right-wing news media claim that Mayor Bloomberg tried to keep the National Guard out of Brooklyn because they carry guns. I find that odd, since there were armed National Guard in lots of places in New York City for several years after 9/11, and this was while Bloomberg was mayor, and he didn’t have a problem with armed National Guard in Grand Central Station or Penn Station or Rockefeller Center or Wall Street or anywhere else I used to see them.

And, anyway, there are National Guard in Brooklyn, according to a Brooklyn newspaper.

Reading between the lines a bit, what seems to have happened is that Borough President Marty Markowitz asked for National Guard to stop looting in places like Coney Island and Seagate. And Bloomberg said no, that’s what the NYPD is for.

Commenters to The Blaze appear to assume that all of New York is being terrorized by roaming gangs of criminals and there is no law enforcement helping them. Actually, the NYPD is not known for being shy about using firearms against suspects, and it’s actually very good at crowd and riot control, although I haven’t heard of actual riots going on — well, a lack of riots never stopped them from doing riot control before, come to think of it — or looting of a widespread nature. Some isolated incidents do not warrant calling the troops.

The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country. If it were an army, it would be the 7th largest in the world. Mayor Bloomberg joked just last year that “I have my own army.”

Keeping the NYPD doing law enforcement and letting National Guard do disaster relief sounds like a sensible use of resources to me.

I’m not sure if the Guardsare under Governor Cuomo’s authority or federal authority, since I believe Guard units from outside New York have come here to help. In any event, I’m not sure Mayor Bloomberg would have any real authority to say where they are deployed, anyway.

New York City actually has a much lower rate of violent crime than most other large American cities, although most of America seems to think New York is the most dangerous place in the country.

11 thoughts on “The Guns of Brooklyn”

  1. Yeah, but you know – blah people. They MUST be rioting. DANGER! SCARY! NEED GUNS! KILL! FOR SAFETY!

  2. Whether or not random people are a “well regulated militia”, the national guard, the police, and the military certainly are.

  3. Thank you, yahoo’s, crackers, yahooette’s, and crackerette’s, for your touching concern for our freedom and liberties – but you know NOTHING about our city (ok – my former city – but I’m not that far away).
    Or our state.

    Go worry about your own armed little sh*tholes, and leave us to live our decadent, Gay, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, mostly gun-free, urban lives.
    “ZOMG! Look! Someone went and stole your traffic light, and the barber’s pole is gone! Call out the White Militia’s – there must be gangs of roving Negro’s somewhere! Jesus knows, white people NEVER loot or steal!!!”

  4. Whatever keeps you all safest, that’s what I’m for.

    Bloomie seems to know what he’s doing, but in these situations there are going to be rumors, counter-rumors and misunderstandings, many intentional what with the election 48 hours away.

  5. btw, today Nate gives Romney a 14.9% chance of victory. Can’t wait to see what that’ll be Tuesday.

  6. New York City actually has a much lower rate of violent crime than most other large American cities, although most of America seems to think New York is the most dangerous place in the country.

    I live in Oakland CA, a city that’s right up there with Detroit and St. Louis for rates of violent crime, and I still think of New York as “dangerous.” Too much “Law & Order”, I guess.

    • Too much “Law & Order”, I guess.

      Well, yeah. For so many years films and television loved to picture New York as gritty and dangerous, and there are some parts that are gritty and dangerous, but most of it isn’t. Most of Manhattan is about as gritty and dangerous as Disney World.

      Also, too, people have a hard time grasping the difference between “rate” and absolute numbers. There were (I think) 502 homicides in New York City in 2011. Picking another city at random, there were 87 people murdered in Atlanta in 2011. So Atlanta seems safer! But the population of Atlanta (within the actual city limits) is 420,003, while the population of New York City is 8,244,910. Even I can wrap my head around the fact that one individual has a higher chance of being murdered in Atlanta than in New York City.

  7. Yeah, maha, but I still miss taking people to the Alphabet Jungle – in the DAYtime, of course! No fool, I…
    And I miss taking people down the old 42nd Street at night, where visitors would take one look at it, and quake.
    My favorite used to be when, before we turned onto 42nd, we’d pass by either 39th, 40th, or 41st Streets from the South, or 45th, 44th, or 43rd, from the North, and the fools would look at me and ask, “Can’t we go down one of THOSE streets? They look so much quieter and safer?”
    And then I’d tell them that the safest place you could possibly be, was on 42nd Street, and that they had a much greater chance of being attacked, mugged, or killed, on the other streets. “For every junkie, pimp, hooker, grifter, junkie, lush, or deviant, there’s a cop on 42nd St!”
    Now, 42nd Street is DisneyNY. YUCK!

  9. Gad, sir, Marty Markowitz is right! The National Guard must be firmly told to stop looting!

    Sorry, I occasionally have these Colonel Blimp moments.

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