A national top-10 list of handgun dealers whose weapons are most likely to turn up at New York City crime scenes has been made public for the first time and includes a local retail shop.
John Jovino Co., on Center Market Place in downtown Manhattan, sold 102 guns that turned up in criminal investigations around the city between 1996 and 2000. That’s a staggering figure considering 86 percent of the country’s gun retailers never have a weapon linked to a crime by law enforcement.
But an expert testifying for the NAACP in Brooklyn federal court said the striking thing about the statistics is not how many crime guns were sold by dealers in New York – but how few.
The NAACP released the new information, which it subpoenaed from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as part of its legal battle to hold gun manufacturers responsible for keeping weapons out of the black market.
The Manhattan shop’s owner Anthony Imperato, 45, called the statistics “misleading,” emphasizing that the handguns are not necessarily sold directly to criminals.
“They could end up in the wrong hands, lost or stolen,” said Imperato, whose shop has been open for more than 90 years.
“Also, they could have been used over the past year, but it doesn’t mean they were sold in the last year.”
John Jovino ranks third among dealers that sold the highest number of guns to turn up at crime scenes in the city during the five-year period, after two Virginia retailers – Virginia Police Equipment, which sold 152 guns that were subjected to traces, and R and B Guns, which sold 121.
Howard Andrews, a professor at Columbia University, testified that 85 percent of the handguns found at crime scenes in New York come from out of state. Nationwide, an average of 33 percent of guns found at local crime scenes come from out of state.