US

New York Police Department Posts Video Celebrating Destruction Of ‘Illegal’ Guns

NYPD/Meriç Dağlı/Unsplash

The New York Police Department (NYPD) posted a video on social media Monday celebrating its destruction of thousands of seized firearms.

New York City’s gun laws are among the strictest in the country, including licensing and registration requirements for all firearms, according to the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA). In a Monday post on X, the NYPD featured a 90-second video showing the destruction of hundreds of firearms.

“What happens to the thousands of illegal guns that the NYPD takes off our streets?” the NYPD posted. “They are melted down, never to cause harm again.”

The video initially depicts multiple semiautomatic handguns burning in a furnace, then shifts to show a cart carrying dozens of rifles, both bolt-action and modern semiautomatic, being pushed by a police officer. Two push carts, each carrying dozens of handguns, are seen being placed into a NYPD box truck before two trucks appear on the video hauling the guns to the place where they will be destroyed.

The video then depicts police officers unceremoniously tossing the firearms into a container, which is then lifted and moved to a point in the blast furnace where the firearms are then dumped in. The video later shows the melted down firearms being poured to be used for other items.

In an April 2025 release, then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch celebrated the destruction of over 3,500 firearms.

The release said the destroyed firearms would be donated to the School of Cooperative Technical Education for students enrolled in a welding vocational program to repurpose the metal by creating a memorial to “honor the many victims and their families who have been affected by gun violence.”

“The memorial will aim to represent not only the resilience of New York City after tragedy but also act as a reminder for generations to come that it is never acceptable to possess an illegal firearm or commit violence against another individual,” the release said.