NEW YORK — New York City saw a steep drop in murders and gun violence for the first half of 2024 compared to last year as police took a “historic” number of guns off the streets, NYPD officials said Wednesday.

Overall crime dropped 2% from the same period last year, officials said — though the number of reported rapes, robberies and assaults was up from January to June, according to the latest police department statistics.

As of June 30, murders in the city dropped by 17%, from 208 last year to 171, while the number of shooting incidents fell by 8%, from 482 to 441.

“(The cops) have one mission: to go after the bad guys so they don’t do bad things to good people in this city,” Mayor Adams said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference at police headquarters about the latest crime statistics. “We put in place many initiatives, and those initiatives are working.”

The drop in violence stemmed, in part, from the massive amount of firearms the NYPD has seized over the last year, Police Commissioner Edward Caban said.

“Since 2022 we have taken 13,000 firearms off the streets of the city, with 3,400 guns seized in the past six months,” Caban said. “These weapons will never again threaten innocent New Yorkers.”

Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri said the amount of gun seizures was “historic.”

The numbers of guns taken hadn’t been seen in 29 years, when there were four times more shootings in the city than today, LiPetri said.

Crime reductions were seen across the board, from precincts to NYCHA housing facilities to the subway system, where Gov. Hochul called in the National Guard to backstop the NYPD to keep an eye out for crimes and do bag checks.

By the end of June, there was a 6% drop in overall crime in the city’s transit system, officials said.

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