Manhattan district attorney works to curb interstate gun trafficking: ‘It’s a national issue’

At a time of intense focus on high-profile and local incidents of gun violence in the US, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been appointed to help lead Prosecutors Against Gun Violence (PAGV), a national group that has been trying to decrease shootings and violence since 2014.

Bragg says he plans to bring his “big city experience” to the national group, and wants to collaborate with his peers to address interstate gun trafficking.

“I’ve long been focused on gun issues. I grew up in Harlem in the 80s and am not a stranger to gun violence. I’ve had a semiautomatic pointed at my head and bullets flying in my direction,” Bragg said.

Bragg will be succeeding the Bronx county DA, Darcel Clark, who announced her departure from the organization on Wednesday, and will join the Columbus, Ohio, city attorney, Zach Klein, as co-chair.

Then Columbus city council president Zach Klein, center, speaks at a news conference on 29 November 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

PAGV was founded by Bragg’s predecessor in the Manhattan DA’s office, Cyrus Vance Jr, and Mike Feuer, former Los Angeles city attorney, who built the bipartisan group to help address, prevent and respond to gun violence through prosecutions, promoting safe firearm storage and going after firearm traffickers. The bipartisan group is made up of more than 50 prosecutors including Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins and Atlanta DA Fani Willis.

In a nation where most homicides are committed with firearms (in 2023 nearly 23,000 people were killed in the US, 18,000 of them with guns, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), prosecutors can play an important role in driving these numbers downward by convicting shooters and going after people illegally funneling guns into communities, Bragg said.

Since being sworn in as DA at the beginning of 2022, Bragg says he and his office have focused heavily on stopping the flow of so-called ghost guns, or unregistered firearms that are made with a printer or bought online as a kit and assembled at home. In 2023, he put forward legislation to ban the manufacturing of 3D-printed guns; in 2024, he called on YouTube to change its algorithm so the platform won’t suggest ghost gun-building tutorials; and in March, he called on printer makers to create deterrents to stop people from printing the weapons.

Alvin Bragg stands with his wife, Jamila Bragg, at an election night gathering as he speaks to supporters in New York on 22 June 2021. Photograph: Craig Ruttle/AP

Bragg’s appointment to PAGV comes as Donald Trump and his administration have portrayed major US cities like Chicago and San Francisco as crime-ridden locales in need of federal intervention.

In reality, the number of homicides in many major US cities, including in Los Angeles, Memphis and Philadelphia, is declining.

So far this year, 39 people have been killed in Manhattan, compared to 61 at the same point in 2024, according to New York police data.

Still, gun violence remains a persistent and deadly problem for many American communities. The vast majority – 95% – of shooting victims in the borough are either Black or Latino, Bragg said. This persistent disparity, Bragg said, underscores the need for increased collaboration between prosecutors, social workers and non-profits that can get to people who’ve lost a friend to violence before they retaliate.

“We’ve been focusing our resources and seeing the impacts,” he said. “It’s getting services to address that trauma before it metastasizes,” Bragg added. “Unfortunately we see that someone is a victim of gun violence and then a perpetrator.”

It’s a collaboration that has borne fruit in recent years. In cities across the country, local leaders have credited partnerships between law enforcement and community violence prevention groups with helping to drive down the number of shootings.

But the model is under threat, with many of the local violence prevention organizations that Bragg’s office partners with to provide victim services and mentorship to the small group of teenagers and young men responsible for the majority of shooting and violence under severe financial stress. In April the Trump administration canceled more than $150m in grant funding to such programs as a part of a larger $800m cut for grants managed by the justice department’s office of justice programs (OJP) to organizations that prevent and respond to gun violence, sexual assault and hate crimes; support foster youth; and provide re-entry services.

Since being sworn in as DA, Bragg’s office has tried to address gun violence with summer programs for teenagers – shootings often increase during that season.

This past summer, his office gave nearly $300,000 to non-profits working throughout Harlem, where shootings have been an incessant issue for its residents. The funds, Bragg said, can’t replace the money that flowed during the Biden administration, but it can “incentivize collaboration” between non-profits with similar missions.

“We’re aware of the cuts and we won’t be able to stand in the breach of that completely. What we’ve seen is groups that are doing more with less,” he said.

Still, Bragg is hopeful that he can introduce his peers about the approaches that have proven successful in Manhattan and learn about what other jurisdictions are struggling with.

“It’s about learning and realizing that what we’re seeing here is a national issue and it’s manifesting itself in the same ways somewhere else.