New York Gov. Kathy Hochul responded with the predictable liberal mantra following a shooting incident in New York City on Monday night that left four dead.
Las Vegas, Nevada, resident Shane Tamura, 27, went to the Midtown Manhattan office building at 345 Park Avenue that houses the NFL, Blackstone, and the accounting firm KPMG, among others.
He double-parked his BMW, then proceeded into the building, where he shot off-duty NYPD Officer Didarul Islam and others in the lobby with an M4 rifle before taking an elevator to the 33rd floor of the high-rise and killing himself.
🚨BREAKING: Active Shooter with AR Rifle in Park Avenue Midtown Manhattan, NYC. MULTIPLE casualties reported, including NYPD officers pic.twitter.com/T7ZNmRHWAl
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) July 28, 2025
Hochul posted Tuesday on X in response to the shooting, “4 lives stolen. An NYPD officer leaves behind a pregnant wife and 2 young sons.”
“Because a gunman from a state with weak gun laws brought an AR-15 to New York. We once had a national assault weapons ban. It worked. Republicans in Congress must find the courage to pass it again,” she added.
Fox News host Lisa Boothe replied to Hochul’s post, writing, “New York’s insane amount of gun laws did not stop the killer. What a weak argument.”
New York’s insane amount of gun laws did not stop the killer. What a weak argument. https://t.co/FR4NAgfkI5
— Lisa Boothe 🇺🇸 (@LisaMarieBoothe) July 29, 2025
Will Kathy Hochul be reelected in 2026?
Another responded, “You make New Yorkers defenseless and then blame states that are more free for your crime. Pathetic.”
Still another wrote, “I’m shocked your gun free zone didn’t stop him.”
I’m shocked your gun free zone didn’t stop him
— Jason Bacon (@beerundbacon) July 29, 2025
Hochul’s assertion that the national assault weapons ban passed in 1994 and which expired in 2004 “worked” does not stand up to scrutiny.
First, consider that the total number of murders in 1993, before the ban was passed, was 24,530.
Then-President Bill Clinton signed the ban into law in September 1994, and that year, the number of murders went down to 23,330, but that total was not much different than 1992, when the tally was 23,760 with no ban in effect.
The total number of murders continued to fall drastically during the 1990s, bottoming out at 15,522 in 1999, five years into the ban’s life.
As a frame of reference, that was also the year of the Columbine High School shooting, when two teens went on a shooting rampage, killing 14 and wounding 24 others.
Continuing on further into the assault weapons ban years, murders were back up to 17,716 by 2003.
In 2004, the ban expired, and did the murder rate go back up in the subsequent years? No. It hit 14,220, the lowest number recorded in the past three decades, in 2014, with years of decline all preceding it. So there appears to be no correlation between an assault weapons ban and the number of murders in the U.S.
Even the liberal FactCheck.org conceded in 2013 that the effectiveness of the assault weapons ban was at best “mixed,” pointing to an FBI report published in 2004.
The report’s author wrote, “There has not been a clear decline in the use of ARs, though assessments are complicated by the rarity of crimes with these weapons and by substitution of post-ban rifles that are very similar to the banned AR models.”
“Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement,” he added.
A breakdown of specified murder weapons used in 2023 in the U.S. found handguns at the top of the list with 7,159, followed by knives at 1,562, then personal weapons like hands, fists, and feet, and finally rifles at 511.
So Hochul is just grandstanding by calling for a renewed national so-called assault weapons ban. The statistics prove it is not the answer to stopping people intent on committing murder.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
