Gang members charged for shooting near Zeldin home :: 12/14/2022

It’s not every day you write about a shooting pretty much on the doorstep of a gubernatorial candidate’s home, but I did that earlier this year. It was almost surreal, in a way, that such a thing could happen and it not be politically motivated.

Yet, it wasn’t. It actually looked gang related from the get-go.

In fact, it was just a prime example of how bad crime has gotten in New York.

At least in this case, though, arrests have been made.

Heinous Long Island gang members who love to boast they’re “Everybody Killers’’ unleashed a reign of terror that included the shooting outside Rep. Lee Zeldin’s home — and even the theft of  French bulldogs to fund their crimes, authorities said Monday.

The suspected teenage triggerman in the Zeldin shooting, Noah Green, is among 18 alleged members of the gang named in a 148-count indictment unsealed by Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney charging the street crew with murder, attempted murder, carjackings and thefts.

Green, 18, had been indicted Nov. 7 in the Zeldin shooting, but only for gun possession.

Authorities said the gang called itself “No Fake Love,” or “NFL,” and that many of its members were affiliated with the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs.

“This is a gang that is based on territory,” Tierney said at a press conference Monday, according to a local Fox affiliate. “By that, I mean most of the gang members are themselves members of other gangs, more traditional gangs, like the Bloods and Crips.

Well, they sound charming, don’t they?

It’s interesting, though, because the Bloods and the Crips are rivals and have been for almost 50 years, believe it or not. For both to have members jointly part of another gang just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Of course, it’s possible that Tierney just mentioned those two gangs because they’re the best known, and figured people would get what he meant rather than these people actually being part of the two gangs specifically.

Regardless, it’s a reminder of just how much violent crime is driven by gang culture.

In fact, even when it doesn’t involve gang members specifically, it often involves the culture that surrounds gangs. People want to appear to be hard and tough, so they act hard and tough, which parts of that subculture take to mean you have to meet disrespect with violence.

Gangs and the culture that surrounds them are an honor culture. Disrespect must be addressed or you lose face and often, that requires an act of violence.

So that leads to shootings outside of gubernatorial candidates’ homes and so forth.

New York, however, wants to address this by restricting guns, but we already know that these folks didn’t lawfully possess a firearm in the first place. Gun control isn’t the answer.

If the state wants to really address these problems, they need to direct its focus on how to keep people from going down this road in the first place, which is something they’re not willing to do.

https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/12/13/gang-members-charged-2-n65200