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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue our coverage for one more segment this morning, of the shooting in Midtown, we're going to look at the state of gun control in the wake of Monday's tragedy. Just two days ago, New York City did see its deadliest mass shooting since the year 2000, when-- this, of course, does not include 9/11, which wasn't a shooting, but obviously a bigger mass casualty incident. A lone gunman opened fire in an office building on Park Avenue Monday. You know this.

Four people were fatally shot and killed before 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura turned his assault rifle on himself. While this was a rare tragedy for the city, we're all too familiar with with this story. According to the Gun Violence Archive, for example, this country has seen 254 mass shootings so far in 2025. Mass shootings have some different definitions. I'm not sure which one that uses. Some have three deaths as a minimum for a mass shooting, but you have the idea, 254 of them so far this year, nationwide.

Joining me now to discuss this aspect of the case is Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, a think tank and advocacy group on controlling crime locally. He also has a national background as the former head, for example, of Handgun Control Inc. That gun control organization which became the Brady Campaign. Richard, welcome back to WNYC.

Richard Aborn: Thank you, Brian. Always a pleasure to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Every time a mass shooting occurs in this country, we hear the phrase, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," signaling to the ongoing debate about whether mental health or the guns themselves, or evil, should be blamed. In this instance, the shooter alleges he suffered from CTE, from playing football in his youth. How do you understand, let's say, both the mental health and the gun laws side of this argument?

Richard Aborn: Well, yes, people love this line, guns don't kill people, people kill people. The truth is, people kill people with guns. We see that over and over and over again, particularly with assault weapons. The assault weapon is the weapon of choice in mass murder after mass murder after mass murder. I invite anyone to go back and look at the last 50 or 60 mass murders and you're very likely to see an assault weapon in the mix.

We also have assault weapons with high magazines capacity, assault weapons that can carry 30 or 64 rounds of ammunition as the shooter carries out his deadly task. Is there a mental health component? Sure. We have to be able to tackle some of these mental health issues, but we shouldn't make this false choice between controlling the weapons themselves and mental health. The data is clear. We banned assault-- Brian, you and I have talked about this a lot.

We banned assault weapons in this country for over 10 years and we saw the positive effect of that ban. Mass shootings went down and guess what? The minute Congress put those guns back on the street, mass shootings went right back up. We shouldn't sit here, shake our hands and say, "Oh my God, what are we going to do?" We know what to do. We know what to do. We just have to muster the political will to do it.

We need to get these guns banned again, we need to get these magazines limited to seven rounds, and we need to get them off the streets. Yes, of course, we also have to deal with the mental health issues, but let's not choose one or the other. Mental health in that case just becomes a distraction. Get the guns off the street?

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk about the particular kind of gun used in this shooting and where it fits into what you just said? According to the organization Smoking Gun, the shooter used a Palmetto State Armory AR-15, which appears to be a short barreled PA-15 pistol, equipped with an SB Tactical SBA forearm brace. All of that is from the website Smoking Gun. Translate that for our non gun owning listeners.

Richard Aborn: The reports that I've been reading and seeing is that he carried an M4, which is not radically different than the weapon you just described. The M4 is, and I'll explain this, a semi automatic version of a military weapon which is an M4, which is actually a carbine as opposed to a rifle. A carbine has a shorter barrel than a rifle. The M4 in military and law enforcement use has a fully automatic switch, which means you pull the trigger and the gun continuously fires.

The civilian version of that has all the same characteristics. It's configured in the exact same way, and that's important for mass shootings, but they're not fully automatic. You have to pull the trigger every time you fire. Think about how fast you can flick your finger, that's how fast you can fire a bullet.

Brian Lehrer: The magazine, the capacity, how many bullets can be in the gun at once is a major factor here.

Richard Aborn: Major factor. It sounds like, and it kind of looks like, from pictures, that he was carrying a 30 round magazine. That's 30-- what are called 223 rounds. A very, very fast, effective bullet. He had 30 of those, and we don't know how many shots he fired yet.

Brian Lehrer: Did the assault weapons ban that you referred to before, from the 1990s, limit the size of the magazines?

Richard Aborn: Yes, 10 or less.

Brian Lehrer: 10 or less. Now, what's the New York State law with respect to this? I don't think he could have legally bought this weapon in New York, like he did in Nevada, right?

Richard Aborn: No, that's correct. There are two lessons in this. One, we've had, to my knowledge, no mass shootings in New York City or New York State with an assault weapon that might have been purchased before the ban went into effect. There was a grandfathering clause. Second, the state of Nevada does not ban assault weapons and does not ban high magazines. We realized that he had to get his gun in Nevada and drove it here.

Third, there's a lesson in that, there's a big effort in the country to generate what's called a national carrying concealed weapon permit, which means that if you have a carrying concealed weapon permit in Nevada, for instance, you can use that carrying concealed in New York. Well, here's what you get. When New York has to live by other states rules, we get these sorts of mass shootings.

It's important to understand that if you look back at, say, the last 10 or 15, even go back further, mass shootings in the United States where assault weapons were used, very often, the shooter purchased the gun himself, and I'm saying him purposely, purchased it legally and normally bought that gun within six to nine months, sometimes days before the actual shooting.

Which means that if we have had these guns banned, it's very probable that those shooters would not get those guns, because they tried to get them lawfully, and they would not be able to do so.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, we were talking about the mayoralrace in our previous segment. Is this a point on Andrew Cuomo's resume? Did he drive that gun law that bans these kinds of weapons in New York?

Richard Aborn: He did. He did. Yes, he worked hard at that, and he gets credit for that. Andrew Cuomo has been a long time supporter of gun control, as frankly, was his father. We worked closely with his father on passing the Brady Bill and other laws. No, he's been a very strong proponent. There are things New York City and New York State can still do, but the New York City and New York State gun control laws themselves are very strong.

In fact, interestingly, Brian, if you compare the rate of death by gun inside New York State to inside Nevada, Nevada is just shy of four times higher than New York. The reason for that is that in state after state after state where you see strong gun control laws at the state level, you see much lower rates of death.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. A couple of texts, and listeners, we could maybe take a phone call or two for Richard Aborn from the Citizens Crime Commission, in our remaining time, on the issue of gun laws as an issue in the shooting in Midtown. One text says, "Republicans love to frame this as a mental health issue. Where is the funding for mental health in the so called big beautiful bill? Totally disingenuous argument."

Another listener writes, "I just spent time in Europe and can barely recall seeing a police officer, let alone an armed one, and yet, hardly any mass shootings. They have the same mental illness issues, but they don't have the guns. It's the guns." I wonder if you have enough knowledge to confirm or add to or refute some of that international comparison according to the listener, or anything on mental health funding in the Trump budget that he calls the big beautiful bill?

Richard Aborn: Yes, I am not aware of any mental health funding in the so called big beautiful bill, and I'll leave it at that. I don't think there is any in there. The second text is quite accurate and quite important. If you compare rates of death by gun between the United States and, say, Western industrialized countries where guns are not banned, but they're pretty close to banned, you will see that the United States far outstrips those countries in gun deaths.

Americans are not more violent by nature than people in France, Italy, Spain, or Germany. It's just we have easier access to guns. Once you carry a gun and once you pull that trigger, a very simple act, the act is done. The international comparisons are very important. There are even studies between, say, Vancouver and Seattle, adjoining cities for two different countries, and you'll see the rate of death and injury by gun in Seattle much higher than in Vancouver.

The law makes a huge difference. Brian, in the 30s, the Congress essentially banned fully automatic machine guns. I defy anyone to tell me the last time we saw a fully automatic machine gun used in a crime. Why? Because the laws that the Congress passed were effective. They kept fully automatic machine guns essentially off the streets. There are certain conditions under which you can get them, but it's not relevant to this discussion.

We don't have death by fully automatic machine guns. The law worked. The law worked and the law worked when we banned assault weapons in the 90s, and as I said earlier, that's what we need to do. We have the solution. We just need to be willing to pass it.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes with Richard Aborn, head of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York, as we talk about gun laws as a factor in the mass shooting in Midtown on Monday. Listener writes, "It's frustrating to me that the conversation about gun control seems to always be focused on assault weapons because they are what are generally used in mass shootings. Would it not be a better use of the moment to try to shift the focus to non assault weapons that account for the vast majority of shootings?"

Richard, that's a very fair question. We still have plenty of shootings in New York City, even though one of Mayor Adams' campaign points is that they have gone fairly far down on his watch. Fair and true, but still a significant number of shootings that are not done with assault weapons. I noticed even that our reporter who covered the mass shooting on Monday, her previous story was about multiple shootings in the Bronx over last weekend.

Obviously, those were not mass shootings and did not use assault weapons. What do you say to that Listener's point?

Richard Aborn: It is a very valid and astute observation. Far more people are killed with guns in the United States, in criminal events, accidents, or suicides, where principally handguns are used, and not by assault weapons. The problem is we live in a fiercely political world, and sadly, this Congress-- almost no Congress, acts in a preventative way. It usually takes some big event to trigger action in the Congress, and that's why these mass shootings get so much attention, and then they focus on the guns.

I completely agree with the person who wrote that text. If I had my druthers, we would reexamine all of the gun laws in the United States, and pass laws that would make it much more difficult for criminals to get guns. Let me be crystal clear about one thing. I am not someone that supports a total ban on guns. I do believe that if someone complies with the law and they want to get a gun, or need to get a gun, they should have the ability to do so.

I also firmly believe that we need strong regulations in place to make sure guns don't fall into the hands of people that shouldn't have them. That's criminals and people with mental health issues. What would that look like? It would look like licensing registration in my world. A limitation on the number of guns that you can buy at any one time, because traffickers buy guns in bulk from states with weak gun control laws, and they transport them to strong gun control laws.

A ban on assault weapons, a ban on large magazines, mandatory safety training, mandatory safe storage of guns. Not a single law that I just passed-- Sorry, Brian. Being aspirational. Not a single law that I just articulated would in any way interfere with a law abiding citizen's ability to get a gun. Not a single thing that I said. That's where the country needs to go, but again, I'm a realist. I have to live in a political world. Right now, the focus is on mass shootings, and we need to seize that momentum.

Very often, Brian, you know, this Congress, even the state legislatures, they work incrementally. They barely ever fully tackle an area. They will pass incremental laws tackling an area. Gun control is very much like that. Regrettably, we have to take small steps. We've never been able to take these big, grand steps. I'd like a big beautiful bill on gun control if we could get one, but I don't think that's coming from this Congress.

Brian Lehrer: On the political realities that you were mentioning, here's a text from Sam, in Brooklyn, who wrote, "I really don't like guns, but I grew up in Oregon, where gun ownership is almost universal. Democrats love to talk about banning assault weapons, but fail to discuss the all out civil war that would develop if the government actually tried to take them back."

One more listener call, Jerome, in the Bronx. Jerome, we've got about 30 seconds for you. Hi there. You're on WNYC. Oh, actually, Juliana, could you put his line on on line six? My clicker doesn't seem to be working. There we go. Now we have you, Jerome. Hi.

Jerome: The Las Vegas Police were able to tell the New York City Police Department almost instantaneously that this killer had mental health history. Why wasn't he red flagged in a database and his concealed carry permit called in for an interview, or his permit revoked, or the ATS notified to go talk to him and take his guns? Why didn't any of that happen?

Richard Aborn: Yes, Jerome, it's a very good question. I've actually been trying to find out the answer to that. As we all know, tragically, Las Vegas suffered probably the largest mass murder in US history less than 10 years ago, so they do have this mental health reporting requirement. I don't know why it wasn't fed into the system. We don't know what his mental health issues were, and we don't know what was known by law enforcement.

What we do know, and your question captures it, is that law enforcement knew there was something going on. Yes, frankly, we need to dig into that. Both Nevada and Las Vegas Metro need to understand why that didn't happen. We saw the same thing with the top shooter in Buffalo. He wasn't from Buffalo, he was from the southern tier of the state, but he was exhibiting some mental health issues, and I think the police even visited him. New York State has an ERPO, a red flag law, and they could abuse that.

The failure of this, I think it was the state police. The failure of the state police to use the red flag law triggered, I believe, Governor Hochul-- yes, Governor Hochul, to require that police in New York State use the red flag laws. It's a relatively new law, so we're learning how to use it, but it's a very important law, because it allows you to act very, very, very quickly, based on evidence you can receive from a neighbor, from a loved one, from somebody in the household, from police observations, etc.

Your question's a very good one and we need to get those answers. By the way, in terms of the previous text, no law that any of us have ever advocated anticipates seizing pre existing lawful guns. This is not a go out and seize all the guns.

Brian Lehrer: Which means that even if we passed the new assault weapons ban going forward tomorrow, the country would still be flooded with them, because they're already [unintelligible 00:17:56].

Richard Aborn: [crosstalk] Yes, but Brian, keep in mind, we're doing a study on this right now. Most shooters buy their guns within a very short time before using them. They're buying them lawfully. If the guns weren't available, good chance they wouldn't get them.

Brian Lehrer: Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, thanks so much for coming on today.

Richard Aborn: Always happy to talk with you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: One addendum to the segment we just did before the news, with Richard Aborn from the Citizens Crime Commission, because we want to be factually accurate here. Several people have written in to say a recent development in this story is, they have learned that the shooter's gun permit was revoked. That was in 2022, apparently, according to a couple of listeners.

He had a friend buy the parts to assemble the gun that he used, writes one listener, quoting a news story. Apparently, on the basis of his mental health history, there was at least that, so for the record.

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