Tuesday, Mayor Adams continued his verbal battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by criticizing him for failing to back up his tough-on-crime rhetoric with a stronger gun control position.
The mayor of Staten Island said that Adams’ most recent jabs at DeSantis, who was in Staten Island to speak at a law enforcement conference on Monday, were motivated by a “philosophical dispute.”
Adams said of DeSantis, “We all feel that individuals should have the right to safety, and I support that, and I’m delighted to hear that he supports that as well.
But you need to stand behind that and refuse to encourage excessive gun ownership in our nation, which is endangering far too many New Yorkers.
Adams, who has prioritized getting illegal guns off the streets, expressed concerns about a Supreme Court decision that invalidated a century-old concealed-carry handgun law in New York State last year and predicted at the time that a rise in gun ownership would make fighting crime in the city more challenging.
DeSantis supports a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit and is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination against former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
The bill is currently being discussed in the Florida statehouse. According to current Florida law, those who wish to carry concealed weapons legally must obtain a permit from a state body.
Adams’ most recent attack on DeSantis comes after they and their campaigns exchanged verbal blows on social media, and DeSantis criticized New York State’s bail statutes for not enabling judges to take a defendant’s threat into account when setting bail.
Adams has campaigned for changes to the state’s bail legislation after criticizing changes made to them in 2019.
On Monday, DeSantis again tried to entice New York police to go to Florida.
DeSantis told a group of police enforcement officers on Monday: “If you’re disenchanted, if you don’t think things are going to turn around wherever you are, not only in New York or anyplace, just know that there’s a state that’s doing it right.” A state will value your service, it has been said.
Despite prior remarks that he “inherited” a police department with low morale from former Mayor Bill de Blasio and a pace of resignations unequaled at any point in the preceding 20 years, Adams insisted on Tuesday that confidence within the NYPD is now high.
He declined to give an exact figure for the number of police officers the city needed to bolster its force and said that Florida’s efforts to lure away local officers amount to little more than a ploy.
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