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>The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: Come on. And those are aggregate numbers. There is variability between different state

>The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: Come on. And those are aggregate numbers. There is variability between different states, and rural vs urban crime. For example, I just looked up the homicide rate in Atlanta Georgia (17 per 100k), vs Oslo, Norway (0.5 per 100k). That's crazy big. >have been stoking fears of Americans for decades such that there are people who genuinely believe that America (as a whole) has more crime even when the numbers completely put a lie to that. Things were really bad in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The downtown cores of most major cities were dangerous. Don't pretend it was OK before. Things like the 90s 'crime bill' didn't just come out of nowhere. It was bad. Things only started changing the late 90s and early 2000s when cities went through resistance and yes, crime started falling.

halostatue 6y ago
America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Get them out of the criminal hands, get them out of non-criminal hands, and get them out of cop hands. You’re right that the 90s `crime bills` didn’t come out of nowhere. But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)—because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. They _built_ the problems we have today. The whole idea of a “super predator” was as much a racist invention as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens in Cadillacs”. Civil Forfeiture and RICO sounded like a great idea when it was to be used against white-collar beneficiaries of criminal enterprises. Except that’s not how it got used, and so cops in all jurisdictions started rolling up money from regular citizens just like a regular protection racket, except without the protection. It was _meant_ to be used against the cartels, but instead it got used as an income booster. What made communities safer? It _wasn’t_ giving cops and prosecutors more powers. Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. Cities are _safer_ when you have people spending money in them and living there. Suburbs and exurbs and white flight made downtowns more dangerous by taking all of the money out of the cities and leaving people in desperate straits. Reurbanization and gentrification reversed the trends (although gentrification has its own problems). Related to the use of aggregate numbers, read the Pew link. It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  It's not very easy because it requires a constitutional amendment.
  - halostatue 6y ago
    No, in fact it doesn’t. Gun controls are not incompatible with the second amendment—at least they weren’t until conservative judicial activists bought long-discredited and ahistorical views of gun ownership in the ~40s and ~50s with the foot on the gas pedal ever since (except, of course, for the utter silence of the NRA on the banning of “assault weapons” when the Black Panthers carried them…). Guns were rare, expensive, and often owned by the _militia_ to which the citizen belonged until about 1865. They were then more readily available, but cities and towns (especially the so-called “Wild West”) had fairly strict rules on how/when/who could carry (for reasons both good and bad, especially in the Reconstruction South). Everyone wants to forget the first clause of the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. It’s not clear what it means, and I happen to think that Scalia was wrong, but I’ll admit that Stevens may have been wrong, too. In modern terms, I would argue that the amendment absolutely permits strict licensure of gun owners as a precondition of gun ownership.
    - baggy_trough 6y ago
      Yes, in fact it does. You appear to be talking about something else than the post I responded to, which calls for the elimination of all guns.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Color me skeptical. Does banning certain drugs prevent drug-related crime? These kinds of indirect proposals (e.g. ban guns), that purport to solve complicated social problems (e.g. crime-rate) never pan out, but they are attractive because it FEELS like they are the answer - especially if you already have an ideology that underpins that belief. > But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch) Of course it did. That's exactly why that bill was passed. >because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. Because those companies are the most impacted by crime, petty or otherwise. Gated rich communities were perfectly fine. >Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. None of the things you present as explanations are actually supported by anything. You're putting out explanations that you FEEL are correct based on your own ideology and biases. City, State and Federal governments spend an inordinate amount of money already. Maybe they should spend more, but I don't see evidence that that will lead to outcomes you think it will. >It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area). Don't gas-light. Pull up the crime and homicide rates of a few American cities and compare to Europe. Clearly, America is an outlier.

halostatue 6y ago

America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Get them out of the criminal hands, get them out of non-criminal hands, and get them out of cop hands. You’re right that the 90s `crime bills` didn’t come out of nowhere. But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)—because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. They _built_ the problems we have today. The whole idea of a “super predator” was as much a racist invention as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens in Cadillacs”. Civil Forfeiture and RICO sounded like a great idea when it was to be used against white-collar beneficiaries of criminal enterprises. Except that’s not how it got used, and so cops in all jurisdictions started rolling up money from regular citizens just like a regular protection racket, except without the protection. It was _meant_ to be used against the cartels, but instead it got used as an income booster. What made communities safer? It _wasn’t_ giving cops and prosecutors more powers. Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. Cities are _safer_ when you have people spending money in them and living there. Suburbs and exurbs and white flight made downtowns more dangerous by taking all of the money out of the cities and leaving people in desperate straits. Reurbanization and gentrification reversed the trends (although gentrification has its own problems). Related to the use of aggregate numbers, read the Pew link. It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).

baggy_trough 6y ago
It's not very easy because it requires a constitutional amendment.
- halostatue 6y ago
  No, in fact it doesn’t. Gun controls are not incompatible with the second amendment—at least they weren’t until conservative judicial activists bought long-discredited and ahistorical views of gun ownership in the ~40s and ~50s with the foot on the gas pedal ever since (except, of course, for the utter silence of the NRA on the banning of “assault weapons” when the Black Panthers carried them…). Guns were rare, expensive, and often owned by the _militia_ to which the citizen belonged until about 1865. They were then more readily available, but cities and towns (especially the so-called “Wild West”) had fairly strict rules on how/when/who could carry (for reasons both good and bad, especially in the Reconstruction South). Everyone wants to forget the first clause of the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. It’s not clear what it means, and I happen to think that Scalia was wrong, but I’ll admit that Stevens may have been wrong, too. In modern terms, I would argue that the amendment absolutely permits strict licensure of gun owners as a precondition of gun ownership.
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    Yes, in fact it does. You appear to be talking about something else than the post I responded to, which calls for the elimination of all guns.
macspoofing 6y ago
>America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Color me skeptical. Does banning certain drugs prevent drug-related crime? These kinds of indirect proposals (e.g. ban guns), that purport to solve complicated social problems (e.g. crime-rate) never pan out, but they are attractive because it FEELS like they are the answer - especially if you already have an ideology that underpins that belief. > But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch) Of course it did. That's exactly why that bill was passed. >because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. Because those companies are the most impacted by crime, petty or otherwise. Gated rich communities were perfectly fine. >Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. None of the things you present as explanations are actually supported by anything. You're putting out explanations that you FEEL are correct based on your own ideology and biases. City, State and Federal governments spend an inordinate amount of money already. Maybe they should spend more, but I don't see evidence that that will lead to outcomes you think it will. >It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area). Don't gas-light. Pull up the crime and homicide rates of a few American cities and compare to Europe. Clearly, America is an outlier.