Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said police across the district seized 58 firearms in the month of August, a high mark for police, but a number that points to lax gun laws in neighboring states.

Hayden’s office said it participated in 49 gun related arraignments in August, resulting in the pretrial detention of 21 people and the seizure of 58 firearms. The numbers prompted the DA to point toward nine states where gun laws are lax compared to the Bay State, and where the DA says weapons traffickers are buying guns to sell in Massachusetts.

“We know where these guns are coming from. We know that these traffickers are perfectly knowledgeable about where they can easily buy guns and where they can easily sell them, which are markets like Massachusetts where we have strict, sensible gun purchase regulations. This perilous stream of trafficked weapons is a direct result of our patchwork national approach to firearm sales,” Hayden said in a statement Sunday.

So far this year, according to Hayden’s office, police in Boston have made 306 gun-related arrests and seized 382 firearms. Historically, most of the illegally held guns found by police, Hayden’s office says, came from “Maine, New Hampshire, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Guns have also been traced to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio.”

In fact, according to Hayden’s staff, “the data show that of the 441 traceable guns seized in Boston in 2021, 271, or 61%, originated in those nine states; 67, or 15%, originated in other states; and 103, or 23%, originated in Massachusetts.”

Hayden says that overall gun-related violence is down for the year thus far. By this point in 2023 there were 111 shooting victims found in Boston, this year the police responded to 95 victims through August, an 11% drop.

According to Hayden, overall gun violence and homicides have dropped precipitously since 2020 and the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, with 275 shooting victims and 44 homicides recorded that year, compared to 2021, when there were 196 victims and 25 homicides. Boston Police responded to 180 shooting victims and 32 homicides in 2022 and 142 shooting victims and 26 homicides in 2023, according to DA’s office, and there were 12 homicides recorded in Boston through August.

While that data looks good — with credit due “neighborhood outreach by Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration and the involvement of social service groups, neighborhood organizations and clergy,” according to Hayden — that doesn’t mean the situation looks great from the perspective of the cops walking the beat or the attorneys in court, the DA said.

“Any positive trends we see from the many different elements at work on reducing gun offenses — and crime in general — motivates all the organizations and individuals involved to work even harder. But I think it’s important for the public to be aware of what police and prosecutors are experiencing every day when it comes to the volume of illegal guns, and the August numbers paint that picture pretty clearly,” Hayden said.

Boston police seized these guns in a series of arrests on August 24. (Photo courtesy Boston Police)