Marketplace Features

Underground Economy
November 13, 2001
(Un)happiness is a Warm Gun...in Bushwick
RealAudio
While illicit drug deliveries may have made life more convenient for dealers and users in New York City, that illegal market doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And life hasn’t gotten easier for everyone. 16-year-old Jesus Gonzales thinks most people don't realize how easy it is for kids to buy guns in the neighborhood where he lives - Bushwick Brooklyn. He filed this report.

The names of some of the people interviews have been changed to protect their identities, and some of their voices have been altered.

 I see guns all the time. Either there’s a friend showing one to me, or someone’s trying to sell one to me. Someone’s just about to fight and they have one on them. Even when I play handball outside of my school, people show off their guns.
Khaos: "It calmed down, but it’s getting ready to start back up again."
This is Khaos.
Khaos: "Mad people out here buying guns. Mad people out here buying guns."
When Khaos says "mad people," he means a lot of people.
Jesus: "Do you know a couple of people that sell guns?"
Khaos: "I sell guns."
Jesus: "You sell guns?"
Khaos: "Yeah I sell guns. I sell a lot of guns."
I know a lot of gun dealers. I also know a lot of young people who own guns. My friend Maria says everyone around here knows someone with a gun.
Maria: "More than half my friends own guns. And it’s pretty common to have one in this community, so it wouldn’t be really a new thing."
Gatling: "Ten years ago, people had guns. But, you know, it was the organized groups of drug dealers or the organized crime people -- but now it’s young people."
This is Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Patricia Gatling.
Gatling: "Your co-student could have one. Your next-door neighbor. You know we’re finding a lot more young people with guns and that’s what’s scary."
Gatling told me that most people she sees with illegal guns are younger than 21. Khaos says he has no problem selling guns to minors, as long as he knows them and they have the money. So many young people around here have them that I can walk a block away from my house in any direction and run into some young kid with a gun
Jamie: "Everybody got a gun in Bushwick, yo, everybody. I own one too."
Jesus: "What kind?"
Jamie: "A Mag 60. A Magnum 60."
Jamie is only 16.
Jamie: "It’s easy to get a gun, you just have to have connections. You can get one for $50. I know it got bodies on that gun, but --"
Jesus: "What do you mean by ‘bodies?'"
Jamie: "They shoot and then sell the gun, you know what I’m saying -- like that."
It’s cheaper to buy a used gun than a new one -- especially if it was used to shoot someone -- because the fingerprint and serial number can get you connected to a crime. But it’s not just used guns that you can buy for cheap. At least that’s what Jamie’s brother-in-law says. He says that out of state is the easiest place to get new ones.
Brother-in-law: "You can go to Florida -- all you need is an address. You don’t even need a license, a permit, and you get one. And it’s easy to ship it out here. You can get it through UPS, ship it piece by piece."
Jesus: "Then people sell them illegally in New York.

I wanted to ask you, do you think you need a gun if you live around here in Bushwick?"

Brother-in-law: "Honestly, yeah."
Khaos agrees.
Khaos: "They quick to pull, so you gotta be quick to pull to protect yourself, you know what I’m saying? It's not like a little kid game. They see it either to kill or be killed, and I ain’t trying to be killed."
These guys say they need guns to protect themselves, but around here when people are shot, it’s not usually for self-defense. I didn’t really know the kid who got shot in the neck in front of Bushwick High School almost a year ago, but I knew who he was. His name is Joseph and he was 18. Some guy with a gun saw this silver cross he was wearing and told him to hand it over. When he didn’t, the kid shot him. I saw him on the ground, right after he got hit. He died that night in the hospital. Police say Joseph’s killer was also a high school student. The papers say he’d gotten in a fight with his girlfriend that afternoon. That could have been anyone in a bad mood with a gun in his pocket.

Assistant DA Gatling says it’s up to us -- people in the neighborhood -- to call the police when we see a gun.

Gatling: "The public has to do something. People talk about crime going down. Crime goes down because the community gets tired of it. Enforcement works, but enforcement only goes so far. It has to be an outcry from the community, and the community has to say to their children, to their family members, ‘We don’t want a gun in the house, we don’t like guns. Even if you don’t feel safe, we’re not going to use a gun out here, you know, maybe we’ll go out in threes.’"
Maybe that would work, but I doubt it’s gonna happen. People here don’t want to get involved. Like Maria.
Jesus: "Do you know any gun dealers?"
Maria: "I do, but I keep them anonymous."
My brothers tell me all the time to turn in the gun dealers I know.
Jose: "Because there’s nothing more disgusting than hearing someone got shot, and you knowing the person. It sucks, you know? If I ever see you in a coffin dead, I’m going to kill you."
I’d keep guns off the streets if I could -- keep them off people, off cops, off everybody. They’re just built to kill people, and that’s no good. Sometimes I feel like turning people in -- like when there’s a shooting in front of my house. But something always stops me. I grew up in this place. I knew these people before they even started dealing with guns. Those are the people who watch my back when I need them. They’re like family -- I can’t turn them in.

In Brooklyn, New York, I’m Jesus Gonzalez for Marketplace.

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