NIAGARA FALLS — Is this an international tourist destination or the Wild West?

That’s what some are starting to wonder after nearly 50 shooting incidents since the start of the year, including a homicide Thursday.

City police trace much of the recent gun violence — although not the killing — to growing gang activity, particularly in the South End and parts of the center city.

At least eight gangs or gang factions are fighting for control, said Narcotics Division Lt. Kelly Rizzo.

“Their first concern is money,” Rizzo said. “Some of them want to get it by selling drugs, and some want to steal what drug dealers have. And while people will tell you who is breaking into cars in the neighborhood, because they don’t feel scared, with people shooting guns in the middle of the day, it’s harder to get people to say who is doing it.”

Police are taking action in two big ways.

They have conducted more than a dozen raids during the last several weeks in efforts to shut down drug houses and confiscate illegal weapons. They also look to change the way special street patrols do their jobs by altering shifts and the neighborhoods they target.

Rizzo and Narcotics Detective John Galie said that when they went on road patrol 15 years ago they would turn up only a few guns a year.

“Now every search warrant you go to, nearly 90 percent, there’s guns,” Galie said. “I don’t think they are hunters.”

Not all of the recent warrants issued for raids were gang-related, Rizzo said, but those that were tied to gangs involved “very violent homes.”

In a March 3 raid in the 500 block of Sixth Street, police found a residence “prepared for war,” Galie said. Loaded guns were behind the couch, and police discovered targets that had been used by someone firing handguns.

Among the shooting incidents:

Six shots were fired into a house with gang connections Feb. 26 in the 1300 block of Ashland Avenue, sending women and children running for cover. No one was hurt, but bullets went through windows and were found in a wall and a bannister.

Four teens, ages 16 to 18, were charged as adults with criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly firing from the window of an apartment at 9 p. m. March 4 in the 500 block of 19th Street. At least one of two long guns found in the apartment had been stolen, Juvenile Detective Capt. Nicholas Paonessa said.

At 3 p. m. Tuesday, people in a car exchanged gunfire with someone on the sidewalk. A house at 16th and

Niagara streets and a rental car were hit, though none of the shooters appears to have been hurt, said Capt. William M. Thomson, chief of detectives.

Police Superintendent John C. Chella said a few people have been hurt during the shooting incidents but “nothing critical . . . a couple of days in the hospital.”

“It’s very serious,” Thomson said. “Sooner or later, an innocent victim is going to get caught up in this nonsense.”

Rizzo said drug dealers have been renting apartments in substandard houses, where rent is cheap. “They put in enough furniture to sit there and play a video game, but they don’t live there,” he said. “They don’t want the problem of us smashing in their mother’s door.

The recent troubles can be traced, in part, to a job well done. Last March, hundreds of federal agents and police officers from across Western New York poured into the city for a major takedown of the Bloods, a gang linked to a spike in crack cocaine sales, shootings and home invasions in the city. More than two dozen members were arrested.

“Now some of the quieter members who couldn’t go up against those members or those who were left behind have little factions that are each trying to take control,” Rizzo said. “So now instead of a larger one we have eight smaller ones vying for control.”

Many of those involved are young men under age 24, and some are juveniles.

“Juveniles are emotional, and they don’t think ahead, and sometimes that is what makes them more dangerous,” said Paonessa, the juvenile detective captain. “If they feel like shooting, they are going to take a shot. To them, if they get in trouble, it makes them more impressive in their little gang world.”

City police say they will continue to be relentless in their methods.

East Side Block Club President Patricia Frederick said residents have noticed that with the 19th Street police substation opening last November and the Roving Anti-Crime Unit, nobody in city neighborhoods knows when police will show up.

Rizzo said the roving unit is a four-officer street patrol that focuses on high-crime areas. The unit has tried changing its hours so that its movements are a little more unexpected.

Rizzo said the officers offer rewards for leads that get a gun off the street. They also have an anonymous tip line at 286-4591.

Chella said he has talked with city officials and plans to talk with police union officials soon about how to stagger shifts and make other changes to address the escalation in shooting-related calls.

“We are looking at flexibility,” he said, “but we do have a plan and would like to roll this out before the kids’ Easter break at the end of March.”