One innovation that NYPD adopted during the Giuliani/Bratton era was to process people stopped for "minor" offenses. They often discovered the guy would have warrants out on him for major stuff. The criminal personality violates the law routinely and chronically.
I grew up in Queens, and a local white kid, when he was around 20 used to like to smoke dope and hang out on Parsons Boulevard and Hillside Avenue. He bought a “clean” black market 0.25 automatic, “clean” meaning the vendor “certified” that is wasn’t used in any murders. So he stood around on the corner of Hillside and Parsons, smoking a joint and waving his pop gun. A couple of black undercover cops from the 103 busted him. The DA wanted him to do five years, but he wound up getting a felony conviction and probation.
He was meathead. People like that should *not* have firearms.