Bloomberg: Gun-Toting Teens At Decade Low

According to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of teens carrying guns in New York City is now less than half that of the nation as a whole—and the city’s mayor is taking the credit.

At a press conference at the 81st Police Precinct in Bedford Stuyvesant on Thursday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that since he’s been in office, the NYPD policies enacted—including the controversial stop-and-frisk policy—have helped to bring the rate of gun-toting teens down to a decade-low, reported the New York Post.

CDC data showed that 2.3 percent of city students in grades 9 through 12 admitted in a 2011 survey to carrying a gun within the past 30 days. That was the lowest percentage of any major city and well below the national average of 5.1 percent.

In 2009, the previous time the survey was taken, the city’s rate was 3 percent. In 2001, before Bloomberg took office, it was 3.6 percent.

Although critics aren’t convinced that stop-and-frisk is driving down the number of street weapons, Bloomberg argued that the NYPD has to remain proactive to protect lives and that the policies should not end.