US facing wave of murders and gun violence

[deadparrot]

ROXBURY, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Analicia Perry was kneeling to light a candle at a makeshift shrine to her brother when she was shot in the face and killed -- four years to the day after her brother was gunned down on the same spot.

The slaying of the 20-year-old mother -- on a narrow street behind a police station in Boston's poor Roxbury district last month -- is one of the shocking examples of a rise in the murder rate across the United States that is raising questions about whether police are fighting terrorism at the expense of crime.

In a shift from trends of the past decade, violent crime is on the rise, fueling criticism of Bush administration policies as a wave of murders and shootings hits smaller cities and states with little experience with serious urban violence.

From Kansas City, Missouri, to Indianapolis, Indiana, places that rarely attract notice on annual FBI crime surveys are seeing significant increases in murder. Boston, once a model city in America's battle against gun violence, is poised to eclipse last year's homicide tally, which was the worst in a decade.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060820/pl_nm/crime_usa_dc

[billbuckhead]

1. "The top five states with the highest gun death rates are five states with

"The top five states with the highest gun death rates are five states with incredibly weak gun laws," he said, listing Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico and Wyoming.

In Miami, while overall crime is down, the use of semi-automatic weapons is growing.

"These things are dirt cheap," Police Chief John Timoney told Reuters, estimating the street price at $250 each. "We have seen these assault weapons being used time and time again by drug gangs."

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060820/pl_nm/crime_usa_dc>

[killbotfactory]

23. Alaska? Wyoming?

There are major cities with more people in them. A small increase in the number of homicides can dramatically increase the gun death rate.

[billbuckhead]

42. Japan has no virtually no guns and virtually no gun crime

Hard to argue with logic. No guns=no gun crime. Guns are the most favored weapons of criminals, so why give them easy access to the most powerful weapons? Of advanced nations, only America and Switzerland do and both have high murder rates.

Make a lot of money for neoCON corporations sellin weapons, scares people into voting neoCON and then they make money on the backside with the prison industrial complex.

[Pavulon]

45. Very different society. Finland and switzerland

also have "lax" laws and very low crime rates.

This is a socio-economic problem.

[billbuckhead]

48. Ireland has virtually same laws as Japan and similar results

I know, Americans are worse people than Japanese or Irish or Spanish or French or Germans or Brits or Canadians or Kiwi's or Swedes or Dutch or..............Yeah it's our culture allright, a culture that worships guns more than life.

BTW, Switzerland and Finland have high homicide rates for Europe. BTW, did you know Switzerland is moving toward EU style gunlaws?
<http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html>

[Nevernose]

53. You must've missed something in "Bowling For Columbine"

Or at least have seen something I didn't see.

My perspective of the argument of the movie wasn't that guns were bad, or that America was bad, but was asking the honjest question: why are Americans more afraid of each other than the people in other countries? This would have been a simple question were it just an anti-American one.

Other nations have similar gun laws, simlar gun ownership rates, similar histories of violence and necessity, similar ethinc and SES breakdowns. Yet we seem to kill each other at a much higher rate. Why? Why are we so afraid of each other?

My personal theory is similar to Moore's: the ratings-grabbing, advertising-centered, IMMORAL media. No matter how sensationalistic a headline is, the more afraid they make people, the more afraid people will be. And the more frightened people will tune in. And the more advertising dollars they'll make. I believe that the "conspiracy" isn't even a conscious one; it's more of a conspiracy of rich people to make more money than they already are, rationalize it using Reaganomic terms, and continue to profit by Americans beign scared.

Imagine a world in which people didn't feel that they had to KILL each other to get what they needed; imagine a world of people not needing.

[iverglas]

55. nope

Other nations have similar gun laws, simlar gun ownership rates, similar histories of violence and necessity, similar ethinc and SES breakdowns. Yet we seem to kill each other at a much higher rate. Why? Why are we so afraid of each other?

No other reasonably comparable nation has similar gun laws or similar homicide rates. *OR* similar gun ownership rates, or, most especially, similar handgun ownership rates.

Many people seem to have got the impression from Bowling for Columbine that Canada and the US have similar gun ownership rates, for instance. They don't. The overall firearms ownership rate in Canada is a fraction of the rate in the US: the highest estimate for Canada would still be fewer than 1 gun per 3 people. And most importantly, the handgun ownership rate in Canada, as in all other reasonably comparable nations, is a small fraction of the rate in the US.

There are indeed a variety of factors that can reasonably be thought to contribute to differences in firearms violence and homicide rates. Income disparity -- the extent to which income is unequally distributed in the population -- appears to be one useful predictor of homicide rates, for instance, and the US has by far the most unequal distribution of income (heavily concentrated in the top 20% of the population, with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer for some years now) among comparable nations.

But it is ludicrous to think that the hugely more prevalent presence of firearms, and especially handguns, is *not* a contributing factor.

Imagine a world in which people didn't feel that they had to KILL each other to get what they needed; imagine a world of people not needing.

It would be lovely. But in the meantime, why not plan for a society in which crime and killing were not FACILITATED by widespread easy access to firearms?

Many blame high US violent crime / homicide rates on the war on drugs. No one seems to want to think about how difficult it would be for the organizations that operate the drug trade to carry on their business if they did not have arsenals of firearms. Especially at the street level, which is where the violence that affects the general public occurs -- drug users committing crimes to obtain funds for drugs, drug dealers protecting their market share and asserting and enforcing authority over people both inside and outside the drug trade -- access to firearms is key to their success.

Every firearm used in those endeavours, illegally in the hands of someone using it for criminal purposes, started out legally owned by someone somewhere. Preventing the transfer to the illegal owner -- by negligent or criminal manufacturers or dealers, by supposedly private sellers at gun shows for whose customers no background check is required, by ordinary individuals who leave their firearms unsecured and vulnerable to theft, by regular folks who sell or give or lend firearms to friends and family and total strangers in transactions that are subject to no controls -- is obviously crucial to reducing firearms crime and violence.

There are many links in the chain of crime and violence. To ignore such an obvious one is to guarantee defeat.

[billbuckhead]

60. What other advanced nation has similar gun laws?

Canada is hard on pistols. WHAT OTHER NATIONS? Switzerland is moving toward EU style gun laws>

[alfredo]

51. That's what Michael Moore was saying with his

"Bowling For Colombine." It's not the gun, it is the culture.

[Lindacooks]

85. It's the guns and the culture.

Together they are an incendiary mix that kills thousands each year.

[wordpix2]

91. it's also a war that's draining our econ. resources while our schools,

social programs and infrastructure go down the drain.

[Lindacooks]

93. Yep.

I don't know what it's going to take to get things back on track, or if we can.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

58. yep.

[Toots]

57. Well to argue your logic

We let the Iraqis keep their guns and ....well maybe that isn't a good argument..:shrug:

[leesa]

67. Canada has lots of guns and very little gun crime. I think it's our

love of violence, encourage by our leadership and the gun and war merchants, that give us our problem.

[iverglas]

81. Canada has lots of LONG guns

Although still far fewer, proportionately, than the US.

What Canada is notably lacking is handguns. Surely the implications should be kinda obvious.

[Name removed]

73. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wordpix2]

90. good point

[4dsc]

27. What's considered a "weak gun law"??

This doesn't make any sense??

[benEzra]

31. So are many in the bottom ten, Bill...

"The top five states with the highest gun death rates are five states with incredibly weak gun laws," he said, listing Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico and Wyoming.

So are many in the bottom ten, Bill. My wife's home state of Maine had the lowest homicide rate in the nation, last time I checked. It also has gun laws that are more gun-owner-friendly than Alabama's.

In Miami, while overall crime is down, the use of semi-automatic weapons is growing.

"These things are dirt cheap," Police Chief John Timoney told Reuters, estimating the street price at $250 each. "We have seen these assault weapons being used time and time again by drug gangs."

Baloney. A "semi-automatic weapon" and an "assault weapon" are two different concepts.

Here's a "semi-automatic weapon":




But the most commonly used firearm in homicides is still the .38/.357 revolver, by far.



The bit about "assault rifles" (sic) being any sort of contributor to the crime problem is bogus. All rifles combined account for less than 3% of homicides nationally, and many states report ZERO rifle homicides in any given year. That's per the FBI, not the NRA:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/offense_tabulations/table_20-22.html

[billbuckhead]

43. True or false? The USA leads all high income nations in murder&gun crime?

Spin the statistics however you want. America's gun situation is as much a policy failure as Iraqnam.

It's no accident the most fascist regime in USA history is the most fanatically pro-gun.

[Name removed]

74. Deleted message

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[krispos42]

80. There are three entities in the 2nd Amentment

The militia, the state, and the people. The second part of the 2nd Amendment expliciatley states the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

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.

We get very upset when the Bush administration does legal gymnastics to try to get around the 4th Amendment (among others). We say "look, it says it right there! You need a warrent!!!". Then many of us Democrats start doing the same handsprings and leaps when it comes to the 2nd Amendment.

Virtually no Republicans and only half of Democrats want to clamp down on guns in this country. It's an issue that serves only to divide Democrats and to be a wedge issue by the neocons. And it cost us in 1994, and because of it it's been costing the country ever since. Let it rest! Concentrate on 2006!

[iverglas]

82. "one can argue the constitutionality of abortion"

One could, if one had no clue whatsoever about that whole fundamental, human, constitutional RIGHTS thang.

Or if one were a misogynist piece of shit who didn't give a damn about WOMEN's rights, I guess.

What was your point?

[krispos42]

79. Oops, error

Bush is not a pro-gun as the knuckle-dragging neocons want him to be. He wimped out big time on the AWB in 2004, where he said he would renew the ban if Congress sent it to him. The gun-nuts tried to spin it into a masterful plan of political strategy, but even to a gun-owner like me the argument fell way flat.

And there are more gun laws now than there were a decade ago. Several states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massacheusettes, which combined have about 25% of the US population, have chosen to maintain many or all of the provisions of the AWB, including the somewhat arbitrary high-capacity magazine standard.

I read several gun magazines, and believe me when I say that gun enthusists don't want criminals to have guns either. No sane person does. And they do support and do not bitch about many of the gun laws in effect. There are some that take pretty hard hits in the magazines, such as waiting periods, magazine-capacity limits, 'may issue' (instead of 'shall issue') CCW permits, and the horribly misnamed 'ballistic fingerprinting', but the background checks, internal or external gun locks, and even gun registration don't get bitched about.

Incidently, Hitler was not in favor of private ownership of firearms.

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" -Adolf Hitler,1935

Look, we've lost enough rights under this proto-fascist BushCo. Let's stop TAKING away rights from people and start restoring them!

[-..__...]

36. Are these Brady bloated stats?

"The top five states with the highest gun death rates are five states with incredibly weak gun laws," he said, listing Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico and Wyoming"

You know... add in the gun related suicides and hunting accidents to inflate the numbers.

"These things are dirt cheap," Police Chief John Timoney told Reuters, estimating the street price at $250 each. "We have seen these assault weapons being used time and time again by drug gangs."

Damn! Where are these guys buying their "assault weapons"... I wish I could find bargains like that.

Even a used legally sold and purchased WASR-10 (AK-47), isn't that cheap.

Unless of course Chief Timoney has his head up his ass (deliberately or not), and is calling anything and everything that takes a magazine or clip an "assault" weapon".

[Missy M]

2. It sure is.....

there seems to be a murder or two every day around here. Much of it is gang, drug related. The streets are becoming real mean.

[Kutjara]

3. The same thing is happening in Britain.

After years of declining violent crime rates, all trends are on the upswing, with each passing year beating the previous one. As more and more law enforcement resources are devoted to chasing fantasy terrorists, the real beneficiaries of the 'war on terror' are murderers, rapists and thieves.

There simply aren't the resources to protect the American people from real criminals, because law enforcement is so overstretched protecting us from make-believe ones.

[WCGreen]

4. And to think Clinton had the lowest murder rate in large cities

Ah, that damn bastard....

He was a degenerate who destroyed the country....

[Luna_Chick]

20. Yeah, good thing we got that there impeachment thing after him

After all, screwin' the country is far more acceptable than Big Dog gettin' some from a consenting adult.

[brentspeak]

5. Most of these killings are taking place in the inner city

NJ's suburbs and rural areas are safe, but the cities (Newark, Paterson, Camden, 3/4 of Trenton, 3/4 of Jersey City) are as dangerous as they come. The thugs who do the killing have trouble finding guns within the state, so they have to obtain them from out-of-state.

[Double T]

6. We can put up with a few more murders and increased gun violence....

as long as the economy is doing so well for the filthy rich and 5 million new jobs (at wal-mart) have been created, under bushco.

[bronxiteforever]

7. We ain't seen nothing yet! All law enforcement funds which

supported police overtime to work drug gangs, community policing etc have been dramatically cut. Clinton did an outstanding job with his 100,000 new police officers program. Financially strapped cities (where the poor live and gun crime higher) have no money to pay for the longer police shifts which had a huge impact in driving gangs off the street. That type of federal assistance is pretty much completely gone.

Moreover all sorts of little humane programs, like mentoring poor kids who do well in the sciences into the health field, have been cut. A good friend lost her job in such a program where they produced through very tough schools, kids who went on to be nurses, pharmacists and even doctors. That program NATIONWIDE was cut to nonexistence by the GOP. Where will her kids go?

All the billions and billions went to Iraq and are gone from the domestic programs and crime is a symptom of that war choice. Add the rich get richer economy and we have inner city crime like the 1970s again which wasn't pretty.

Its time for our party to take this issue and run with it. There is a relationship between tax cuts for the rich and no police, or war without cause and no police or social programs to make inner cities better places to live with hope and not guns-
Thanks for posting this!

[happyslug]

33. I hated that 100,000 officer program, cost a local town to end its police.

Under Clinton's 100,000 officer program, a municipality could hire an officer under the program but only on the condition that the municipality would continue to keep the officers AFTER the Federal funds ran out. One of my local towns used the program and when the federal funds ran out, could not afford to keep the officers on its payroll. The municipality cut the officers hired under the program AND THEN FOUND OUT IT HAD TO PAY BACK THE FEDs the money it had used to hire those officers. The only place to get the money to pay back the Feds was to eliminate their police force completely and use that money to pay back the Feds.

Yes, the program helped those municipality that had been planning an expansion of their Police force anyway, but smaller municipality whose tax base was declining, the program was a debacle.

[bronxiteforever]

44. That is generally how federal grants to Law Enforcement work but your

point is quite valid. There should be ways to tweak that program, but I am dreaming of a time when politicians appeared to give a crap about domestic issues. :banghead:

[Name removed]

72. Deleted message

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[pansypoo53219]

8. AND

how many cops are in iWaq doing guard duty for the chimperor?

[ribbit]

9. Utter bullshit

The skyrocketing murder rate? Not hardly. Not even close. The murder rate, yes even with handguns, has been damned near monotonically declining for decades. Almost all murders, and this is absolutely standard plain-vanilla NIJ stuff, are committed either by felons killing other criminals or domestic violence in which the police were called more than once in the preceeding year. In both cases Federal law already prohibits the killers from owning firearms.

Every time firearms restrictions are increased we're promised it will "make us feel safe". It doesn't actually make anyone except criminals safer. Every time another state passes "shall issue" concealed carry we are treated to bleatings and yammerings of "Tombstone", "Blood in the streets", "Gun violence", "high-powered Assault weapons" and similar lies. It never pans out. If anything the violent crime rate decreases slightly.

[thecrow]

12. Can you cite a source for your information?

waiting...

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

16. Here's a story about her in the Herald

Vanessa Kerry mentored her when Analica was a pregnant 14 year old kid. She was a poor single mother, who seemed from the story to be a nice kid. I can't imagine how hard it would be for a mother to lose even one kid to violence.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=150330

[motocicleta]

17. Thanks karynnj; I was starting to lose hope in DU

That poor woman. I can't believe a compatriot of ours would toss her to the wolves because of gun restriction issues.

[Canuckistanian]

18. Haven't heard the news?

That "declining muder rate" just reversed itself - it's now climbing again.

"Violent crime takes first big jump since '91"
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/12/crime.rate/

[The Sower]

21. Violent crime takes first big jump since '91

Violent crime takes first big jump since '91

Murder numbers climb in smaller cities

From Terry Frieden
CNN

Monday, June 12, 2006; Posted: 10:24 p.m. EDT (02:24 GMT)


A Justice Department official says, "We don't really know what's driving this."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Murders in the United States jumped 4.8 percent last year, and overall violent crime was up 2.5 percent for the year, marking the largest annual increase in crime in the United States since 1991, according to figures released Monday by the FBI.

Robberies nationally increased 4.5 percent, and aggravated assaults increased 1.9 percent, while the number of rapes last year fell 1.9 percent, the report said.

Crime increased most noticeably in several categories in many mid-sized cities and in the Midwest.

Law enforcement authorities and criminologists reacted cautiously, uncertain whether the preliminary statistics for 2005 signal the end of a long downward trend in crime or simply a one-year anomaly.

snip

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/12/crime.rate/

[iverglas]

56. meanwhile, in Canada

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/060720/d060720b.htm

The national homicide rate increased 4% in 2005, in the wake of a 13% increase in 2004, to the highest level in almost a decade. Most of last year's increase was attributable to a rise in homicides in Ontario and Alberta. Police reported 658 homicides last year, 34 more than in 2004.

The national homicide rate peaked in the mid-1970s at 3.0 homicides per 100,000 population. It has generally been dropping since then, reaching a low of 1.7 in 2003. The 2005 rate was 2.0 homicides per 100,000.

So we've broken the 2/100,000 barrier. How nice.

2005 was the Summer of the Gun in Toronto -- in which a number of innocent bystanders were killed by gunshot in a variety of situations largely relating to gang/drug activity:

With 10 more homicides in 2005 than in 2004, Toronto's homicide rate increased 9%. Toronto's rate of 2.0 homicides per 100,000 population ranked in the middle of Canada's nine largest CMAs.

That big-city homicide phenomenon just isn't as noticeable in Canada, despite Toronto being just about the most ethnically diverse city on the planet and all that blah. An extra 10 homicides in a city of comparable size in the US would very definitely not be a 9% increase.

The rate of robbery incidents rose 3%, but it was still 15% lower than a decade ago. Police reported almost 29,000 robberies, more than half of which were committed without a weapon of any kind. Robberies committed with a firearm continued to drop, falling 5% last year.

Firearms robbery is a significant contributor to the homicide rate in the US.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

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[tabasco]

66. LMAO. Best post ever.

These are the gullible people that have destroyed this country.

Due to the millions of people in this country that voted for Bush A SECOND TIME, I have become quite pessimistic about the future of this Nation.

[krispos42]

83. Facts? Okay, start looking around a little

You criticize the previous poster because his information is uncited. You dismiss his information using insults, yet you don't even bother to counter his information with uncited information, much less cited information.

You ahve made up your mind already about both guns and gun owners, and that is as firmly imbedded in your brain as other ignorant and prejudiced ideas. You despise gun-owners as much as Southern whites despised blacks, as much as Nazis despised Jews.

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[iverglas]

86. yer so cute

You criticize the previous poster because his information is uncited. You dismiss his information using insults, yet you don't even bother to counter his information with uncited information, much less cited information.

Did you somehow manage to miss the opening post?

To it, the poster in question replied:

The murder rate, yes even with handguns, has been damned near monotonically declining for decades.

Apparently s/he missed it. What s/he offered was an unsubstantiated and FALSE assertion in answer to the FACTS referred to in the opening post. You got a better idea of how to treat such nonsense other than to "dismiss" it? I can't think of one.


Now, this one here I just want to preserve for posterity. Ya never know.

You ahve made up your mind already about both guns and gun owners, and that is as firmly imbedded in your brain as other ignorant and prejudiced ideas. You despise gun-owners as much as Southern whites despised blacks, as much as Nazis despised Jews.

I mean, talk about yer insults and yer uncited information!

Of course, I guess the only citation you could have offered would have looked something like:

* what I saw when I looked inside your brain this morning

and of course you know that some fool would then be demanding a screenshot ...

[krispos42]

89. Yeah, I have enchanting eyes

But that's besides the point. The only hard numbers in the opening post were the time period between the shootings (exactly 4 years) and the age of the victim. The rest is generalizations bemoaning the recent uptick in violent crime. Something which, incidently, is also happening here in Minneapolis. Fortunately the CNN post further down had some hard information about numbers.

I do know that here in the Minneapolis the murder rate is up, and it is blamed in part on recent major cutbacks in the Minneapolis Police Department in response to budget constraints.

Unless you are refering to the reply to the original post, which has been deleted by the moderater but if I recall went something like this:

{b}Subject:
Facts? Okay, start looking around a little

Body:
How does garbage like you get up and actually function everyday? I mean, it's incredible. You basically have no understanding or grasp of the world around you, and yet you still walk around and somehow function.

The Walking Dead.

There are far too many of you idiots above ground.

Go crawl back in your hole, before you get verbally beaten into the hamburger meat that passes for brain matter in your head.

This is the post I was responding to, just for any latecomers to the thread.

I don't know, I'm not a mental health worker, but it sure looks to me like this person is not open to new ideas on this topic. This person apparently wants to believe that every year the violent crime rate increases exponentially and nearly all of it is done by honest citizens who touch a gun and become compelled murder. And God help you if you disagree with him.

I'm exaggerating, of course, but that does not change the fact that this person's reply to the "that's bullshit" poster was uncalled for. Most threads take several heated exhanges before they get to this level of vitriol.

There is no denying that the "that's bullshit" poster should have thrown some numbers in there. I spent a little time on the NIJ website and found out that "intimate partner" homicides are estimated to be 40-50% of all female homicides, but it does not mention total numbers. I do know that there are about 15,000 homicides per year in the US, but I do not know the percentage of those that are female. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/jr000250e.pdf

It is not that is person does not like guns. It is that this person by all appearances HATES both guns and the people who own them, and would rather threaten and bluster rather than letting different opinions or discussion near his brain. Hate on a level that is not entirely rational.

What really irritates me is that this kind of person is exactly the kind of person held up as an example of what will happen when Democrats take power in Washington. Several times during the 2004 election I heard people say when I mentioned that Bush "won" reelection the answer I got was "Good, now we'll get to keep our guns". It is not even because they think Bush is a good president, it was because they were disgusted with both candidates but that was the tipping point. One guy even said that either of them would run the country into the gutter, but at least when the economy collapsed he's be armed. And that kind of mentality will continue to cost us votes.

This may be my pet peeve. I know Kerry really won Ohio, so a relative handful of disgusted pro-gun voters in the Midwest didn't cost the election. At least, I doubt it. That Blackwell powermonger did (read the Rolling Stone article on him. It's not pleasant). But if that had cost Gore (trying to shake off the Clinton gun ban legacy) enough votes so that he didn't take his home state of Tennessee, then it cost us enormously. If Gore had taken his home state, then all the GOP staffers flown down to Florida to stage "stop the recount" rallies would have amounted to exactly zip, because that would pushed Gore cleanly over the 270 needed electoral votes. And history would have been significantly different and most likely much, much better.

This is, in my opinion, a third-rail for Democrats. Virtually no Republicans support gun restrictions beyond what already exist federally, and such a large number of Democrats feel the same way it is an issue that divides us. And that makes Karl Rove happy, and THAT pisses me off! Leave it to the states, increase enforcement of existing laws, and concentrate on BushCo screwups and criminal activity to swing the Congress to the Democrat's side in November.

Iverglas, you I can talk with and have intelligent (if verbose) discourse. Although we disagree, we have not gotten insulting or hateful. Nothing in this persons post give me such hope.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Sometimes it help to read the thread and responses

before posting your talking points. No one here was suggesting that more gun control would solve this problem so far.

[thecrow]

39. NO answer?

I thought you wouldn't.

[struggle4progress]

49. US homicide rate up 4.8 percent in 2005, says FBI (June 06)

AP , PHILADELPHIA
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2006,Page 7

FBI statistics on Monday confirmed what residents of big cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Cleveland and Las Vegas have seen on the streets: Violent crime in the US is on the rise, posting its biggest one-year percentage increase since 1991 ...

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/06/14/2003313527

[bemildred]

10. "Violence is as American as cherry pie"

-- H. Rap Brown

[gristy]

11. wave of murders and gun violence?????????

"Nationwide, the murder rate rose 5 percent -- the biggest rise in a single year since 1991." :shrug:

[apnu]

26. Sure that's a big number if you consider the population of the US

According to the CIA Factbook, the US population is https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html#People">298,444,215 (July 2006 est.) 5% of that population is is 14,922,210. If I did my math right, that's a lot of freaking people who are victims of gun violence and murder.

[ThoughtCriminal]

28. 5% Increase in murder RATE - not 5% murdered

So no - your math is not right.

[apnu]

37. oops, my bad you're right

That's what happens when I post to DU before coffee.

[michreject]

30. Not 5% of the population

A 5% increase in the prior numbers.

[cally]

15. This is predictable. There is an upsurge of the age group that

tends to be involved in violent crime. I believe the age group is 15 to 30 but I don't remember the exact age cohort. I remember looking at predictions years ago that violent crime would increase in the next few years. This is the baby boomers offspring coming of age.

[Lindacooks]

19. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Rising poverty rates (thanks to Bush), fewer cops on the street (thanks to Bush), fewer programs for poor kids (thanks to Bush) more and cheaper guns available (thanks to Bush), crumbling inner city infrastructure (started with Reagan, and also thanks to Bush), etc. etc. etc. etc.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-12-juveniles-inside_x.htm

[Stargazer99]

22. Number 19 has the many causes listed...if anyone is listening.

Besides Bush and Co will never have to worry about being killed, they are so tightly guarded at our expense...it is no sweat off their nose.

[ixion]

29. don't forget that barbarianism has been made fashionable again

(thanks to Bush).

[Jo March]

32. yep - perhaps the murders are just "preemptive strikes"

* sure made those popular.

[benEzra]

40. Haven't looked into buying a gun lately, I see :)

more and cheaper guns available

There are certainly more styling choices (19th century stock styling is on the way out), a few new calibers (6.8 SPC and the WSSM's come to mind). But cheaper they aren't...

I was pricing a Rock River Arms carbine last month, out of curiosity (going to get one someday). MSRP of $1100. Ouch!

Prices on some rifle ammunition have doubled or tripled in the last five years. 7.62x39mm used to be $1.75 for a box of 20, not anymore...

Cost of raw materials, energy, transportation, and skilled labor are all going up, not down...

[MysteryToMyself]

34. Don't Fall for the Republican Trick

Bushites and the DINO DLC democrats are probably cutting law enforcement and doing this deliberately so some will scream for new gun control laws. Besides the fact that many in the rural areas don't want any kind of gun control and it will cost democrats votes, we all need guns.

We all need guns for self protection and it will become even more necessary as the Bushites keep up with their "rich only the hell with the rest..." agenda. They are cutting every program that people can use to get ahead or stay even and community college is un affordable with the cheap conservative wages. They cut off people's hands, then say "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

The NRA sends out letters and knock on people's doors, especially in rural areas, saying the Democrats will take your guns.

Let the Bushites & Lieberman DLC DINOs live with the guns. Let them deal with angry mobs with guns in Washington. It could come to that if they continue and if they are re elected.

All those muslims the Bushites are enraging overseas may invade. Bushites have the best protection that money can buy, courtesy of those who pay taxes. We need our guns in case they invade. We all need strong locks on our doors and burglar alarms, because in case of invasion, we would get as much help as the people of Katrina.

We can help those in the inner cities by buying the law abiding citizens strong locks & burglar alarms. We could even buy them guns. Arm them all!We could call it The 2006 Democratic "Arm Our Good Guys" Project.

Guns are safer, with parents more aware and safety locks available than before.

Besides I want my gun. Always have and always will. I don't want no gubmint control! That is our most important right. I am planning on buying another.

:kick: :woohoo:

[WhiteTara]

35. I wonder if this is because of all the

soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan who were taught to kill with impunity.

[-..__...]

38. How many 12-18 year old gang-bangers do you know...

that just got back from Iraq and Afghanistan?

I wonder how many of these street thugs are even aware that there's a conflict going on in the Middle East?

WRT to Boston, part of the problem is that many of the gang-bangers that were locked up years ago under "Project Safe Neighborhoods" have served their time and are returning to reclaim their turf from the
younger crowd.

No, my guess is that all this rise in gun related violence is the cause of inner city "thug life" shitbags whom have little or no regard for human life and would unhesitatingly put a bullet into someone because they looked at them the wrong way or dared to set foot on their precious turf.

[theanarch]

54. you're getting warm...

...a few years back i read an article of a statistical survey which suggested countries that experience a war are likely to have ten years of higher-than-average violent crime rates...doesn't seem to matter who started it or won, it's the experience itself that triggers the higher rates...a lot of it has to do with a "war" mentality that makes violence as a means of conflict resolution more acceptable, which is internalized by the population and expressed domesticly. Given that the US instigates a major war about every 12-15 years, these results should not be surprising. Otherwise, crime (in general) tends to follow economic trends (up in periods of rising unemployment and income insecurity) and demographics (spiking when baby boomers and boomlets reach 13/4 to 25--by which time they've either grown up, are in jail, or dead).

[anotherdrew]

64. yep to all that, that's just it

we've really grown a whole segment of society that are basically without conscience or humanity, many of the crimes being committed are senseless and without even gain for the perp. This thug culture needs to be put down somehow, and if these people who are getting out and now going back to the crime life are unable to live as civilized humans, then something else must be done with them, I don't know what.

[goforit]

41. As the middle class and poor get poorer, crime will arise.

[Matariki]

46. I wonder if any studies have been done comparing violence during wartime

to violence during times of peace.

i'd venture a guess that there might be some interesting statistics there.

[eccles12]

47. It's not just violence and crime during wartime. It's when leaders show

no reagard for law and order themselves and promote violence and war.

[Tellurian]

50. They're promoting it to Declare Martial Law..

when that happens, all elections are suspended and curfews are in place indefinitely..

Looks like thats where they're going next.

I can see Cheney making a public service announcement.

"All citizens are to stay in their homes until Nat'l Guard Troops have looting and lawlessness
under control. Please remember, Homeland Security officials will get to your sector as soon as possible.
However,for your own safety, anyone caught on the streets after the curfew will be shot on
sight. We will assume you are an enemy of the state and will be treated accordingly."

God Bless- take me to my bunker, please!

[iverglas]

63. very interesting question

So I set off to ask google.

First thing up on a search for crime violence wartime uk (I was thinking specifically of the broad all-for-one, one-for-all sentiment in the UK during WWII -- which was in fact not conducive to high crime rates), I found this fascinating article:

http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/010kaldor.pdf
(If you hate pdf like I hate pdf, here's google's cached html version.)
Snippets, but I recommend reading the whole thing:

Cosmopolitanism and organised violence
Paper prepared for Conference on "Conceiving Cosmopolitanism", Warwick, 27-29 April 2000
© Mary Kaldor 2000
Centre for the Study of Global Governance
London School of Economics
[e-mail]
2000
first press
www.theglobalsite.ac.uk

... Inter-state war became the only legitimate form of organised violence and, moreover, was sharply distinguished from peace. In place of more or less continuous warfare, war became a discrete episode that was reserved for use against other states and was excluded from internal relations. Domestic pacification (the elimination of private armies, the reduction of corruption, violent crime, piracy and brigandage), the growth of taxation and public borrowing, the regularisation of armed forces and police forces, the development of nationalist sentiment, were all mutually reinforcing in wartime. Essentially, the social contract associated with the construction of the nation-state could be said to have taken the following form; civil and political rights were guaranteed in exchange for paying taxes and fighting in wars. The individual rights that citizens enjoyed in peacetime were exchanged for the abrogation of those rights in wartime. In wartime, the citizens became part of a collectivity, the nation, and had to be ready to die for the state. In exchange for individual civil and political rights in peacetime, the citizen accepted a kind of unlimited liability in wartime. Hence, Elias, writing just before the Second World War, feared that the civilising process would be engulfed by the barbarity of war.

One might say that the line between peacetime and wartime in the US has become so blurred that the bargain she describes is no longer functioning.

... What is new about the crisis of state authority in the 1980s and 1990s is not simply the uncompleted character of the "civilising process" in non Western societies but, rather, something that could be described as its opposite -- the unravelling of the process. The monopoly of violence and taxation is being eroded and the balance between public and private and internal and external has shifted. On the one hand, in those areas prone to conflict, the balance between public and private has shifted as a consequence of the legacy of authoritarianism, the longevity of ruling groups or the failure of populist projects. In particular, centralised economic systems often tend to generate shortages of resources, which are rationed according to privileged and personalistic networks. On the other hand, the balance between internal and external has also shifted as a consequence of growing interconnectedness at a political, economic and social level.

The combination of privatisation and globalisation can give rise to a process, which is almost the reverse of the process through which modern states were constructed. Corruption and clientilism leads to an erosion of the tax revenue base because of declining legitimacy and growing incapacity to collect tax and because of declining investment (both public and private) and, consequently, production. The declining tax revenue leads to growing dependence both on external sources and on private sources, through, for example, rent seeking or criminal activities. Reductions in public expenditure as a result of the shrinking fiscal base as well as pressures from external donors for macro-economic stabilisation and liberalisation (which also may reduce export revenues) further erodes legitimacy. A growing informal economy associated with increased inequalities, unemployment and rural-urban migration, combined with the loss of legitimacy, weakens the rule of law and may lead to the re-emergence of privatised forms of violence - organised crime and the substitution of "protection" for taxation, vigilantes, private security guards protecting economic facilities, especially international companies, para-military groups associated with particular political factions. In particular, reductions in security expenditure, often encouraged by external donors for the best of motives, may lead to break away groups of redundant soldiers and policemen seeking alternative employment.

She is talking about "non-Western" societies in the 80s and 90s ... but her description is eerily similar to what could be said about Bush's USA.

[puffthemagicdragon]

52. Seattle has had a bloody year so far

It certainly has been edgy up here..
Capital Hill shootings in march killed 6 raver kids
Jewish Federation shooting last month killed 1
Dicks drive in shooting this last week in Queen Anne hill

and there are others that I am not mentioning. Its the random ones that are the most unsettling. America is just getting more pissed off by the day and unfortunately a lot of people are armed.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

59. as has Orlando.

[Lorien]

62. Indeed. I've stopped watching the local news

it was crap to begin with, but now it's nothing but murder and rape, one after the other again and again. :-(

[MysteryToMyself]

61. No it isn't inner city

We have 600 low wage workers coming in monthly to work in our area. They get minimum wage at best. The housing for them is nonexistent now, with the low interest housing bubble. It is $100,000 for a half way decent house.

We are being hit with gang wars and things like that in our rural communities, due to the low wage push by the DLC and republicans.

They won't last long here, because we won't tolerate it and we have money for law enforcement.

The Bushites have an agenda for everything they do. They wanted crime to go up when they made that cut. Everytime we think they are being short sighted it is something that will help them get richer or elected.

You can't trust their numbers. The republicans are bringing up bad numbers now because they want the Democrats to push for gun laws. The Republicans get a lot of votes in this area from people afraid the Democrats will take their guns. Poor and lower middle class people vote for Bushites because of their guns. Imagine that.

The rifle association comes out in droves knocking on doors and saying the Dems will take your guns. I personally know poor hardworking people that won't vote Democrat because of that. Those same people say that there is no difference between the Democrats and republicans except the dems want to take our guns, want gay marriage and abortion. Thanks to the DLC DINOs it looks like they are right.

I have to go make an omelet now out of two baby chickens.

[slackmaster]

65. Link to the actual FBI statistics

So people who care to do so can judge for themselves what these numbers mean in context.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

[coalition_unwilling]

68. Violence is as American as apple pie . . . and torture. (n/t)

[Jed Dilligan]

69. Of course, this devolves immediately into a gun debate

when the actual issue is poverty. Bush's policies of impoverishment have led to increased violence. EOM

[MysteryToMyself]

70. You Are Soooo Right

Poverty does increase violence. It also increases the danger to the middle class. We do need guns for self protection.

If we give up our guns only the criminals will have them. I know, republicans say that, but I agree now. It is sad we lost John Kennedy, but now the presidents have more protection.

It is the middle class that is in danger. Those drive in/by shootings could be an act of war by terrorists or an act of thugs. I believe I would call in the FBI and let them deal with it.

Meanwhile, we should know where our gun is, have the safety lock on it and know where our bullets are.

[MysteryToMyself]

71. I meant "If we give up our guns, only the Bushites & the DLC

and the other criminals will have guns.

[sofa king]

75. I concur.

The wealthy are getting wealthier while our underclass is expanding and getting more desperate.

If it hasn't happened already, I think we can also expect a new influx of white-powder drugs as the CIA floods and corners the heroin market in Europe and forces non-Afghani producers to find other markets. They'll come back here, if they ever left, and one day that dirty bomb will come along with them.

Edit: And the day is quickly approaching when your only option to stop the madness may be by taking up arms against your oppressors. You'll sure as hell wish you had 'em then.

[Name removed]

76. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[krispos42]

77. It's the economy

The Clinton Gun Ban expired September 14th, 2004. Enacted in September 1994, the gun ban became more effective year after year as large-capacity magazines were not being sold, the background checks were increasing, and the cosmetic features that define 'assault weapons' were discontinued. On Monday, September 13, 2004, the AWB was at the peak of its effect on the US populace. California had passed even more stringent laws than the federal AWB. Yet violent crime had been on the rise for a couple of years prior to the end of the AWB.

It is because the economy took a downturn, and more and more people are being pushed lower down the economic ladder by Bush policies on labor and economy.

Incidently, the Louisiana reference is probably not valid because of the national disaster that is ongoing down there. With basic servies still woefully unfulfilled, massive unemployment, contractors of various stripes running amok, huge tracts of sparsely-populated urban areas under recovery, etc., it is an area in flux.

There are also may countries that have much higher homicide rates than the US. Countries like Russia and Mexico. Neither of which has liberal gun laws. They do, however, have crappy economies.

The only thing that increasing gun laws will do is shift corpses from the "death by gun" column to the "death by knife" and "death by blunt object" columns. It has happened with suicides. In areas where gun possession has been recently hampered by legislation, gun suicides have gone down, but not the overall suicide rate. Just more hangings, pills, and slit wrists.

We have 220 million guns in private hands in this country of ours, which is two-thirds of all civilian-owned guns on the planet and one-third of all guns in existence. We're really not doing that bad.

[Tight_rope]

78. What do you expect when you have a government that advocates violence!

:argh:

[dreamsvsnightmares]

84. They have been cooking the books on crime rates

the same way they cooked the books on the deficit. How could crime rates be going down when the number of criminals has been going up. If these people sitting in prison are not committing crimes, what the hell are they doing in prison.

[Tellurian]

87. This is the prequel to Martial Law.

So when it is declared, everyone will say...I knew it was coming!
When we really should be addressing the fact; "why is it worse today than a year ago?"

[Anakin Skywalker]

88. Freedom is on the March!

The economy is strong!

[krispos42]

92. Right into history...

I'll get to tell my kid about all the rights we used to have...

[Blue_Tires]

94. very sad

nt