Under the Gun: Taking aim at gun violence plaguing the tri-state
In News 12’s third installment of Under the Gun, senior investigative reporter Tara Rosenblum gains additional insight from experts who are taking aim at the gun violence problem plaguing the tri-state.
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The Turn To Tara team has dedicated three years to produce an unprecedented and detailed survey about deadly shootings across the tri-state from the people who pulled the trigger.
In News 12’s third installment of Under the Gun, senior investigative reporter Tara Rosenblum gains additional insight from experts who are taking aim at the gun violence problem plaguing the tri-state.
It tapped forensic analytic experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and New York Crime Lab to learn about crime trends, ghost guns, the prevalence of guns in the tri-state and new technology that is making firearms even more lethal.
MORE: Under the Gun: A Turn To Tara exclusive
MORE: Under the Gun: Gun violence crisis and its connection to gangs
There are more guns than people in the United States – with about 500 million in circulation, according to data.
"You can get a gun quicker than you can get $5 and get a meal," says former Brooklyn drug dealer Darius Morgan, who is serving a life sentence for murder.
Morgan is one of 102 convicted killers who responded to our survey about what led them to live "under the gun."
"If a person don't feel that they deserve to live, have a purpose to live, they don't respect their own life, how could they respect the next person?" he says. "Hunger breeds a strange appetite ... People are unhappy. People are in pain right now. People are starving on all levels."
John DeVito, the recently retired ATF special agent in charge for New York, says gun violence is “the No. 1 threat to our society."
"When you have 1.5 million people killed by gun violence in our nation, that's a dramatic problem that we need to take more seriously," he says.
It's also a big problem for the youngest members of society, as federal data revealed that gun violence is one of the leading causes of death among children and teens in the tri-state.
Rosenblum spoke with the mothers of 13-year-old Shamoya McKenzie and 14-year-old Zyaire Fernandez, who both died from gun violence years apart in Mount Vernon.
Basketball phenom Shamoya McKenzie died on New Year's Eve in 2016 when she was caught in the crossfire of rival gangs and was struck in the head by a bullet.
"It's just a pain that's never goes away," says her mother. "We have to protect our community. We have to because another mother shouldn't go through what I'm going through."
