I didn’t know this, but violent crime rates are going up in parts of the Midwest. Tim Jones wrote in the Sunday Chicago Tribune:
Since 2004, aggravated assaults are up a whopping 86 percent in Milwaukee and 42 percent in Minneapolis. Homicides are up 41 percent in Cincinnati, 26 percent in Kansas City, Mo., and 38 percent in Cleveland. Detroit’s robberies have leapt by 40 percent since 2004. And the incidence of aggravated assault with a firearm in St. Louis jumped 45 percent, according to a recent study by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington law-enforcement think tank.
I noted in the “Safety First” post that some people (Michelle Malkin among them) have determined that black people cause crime. I hadn’t heard significant numbers of black people were moving to Milwaukee. Oh, wait …
The decline of the manufacturing economy is a common factor linking many of these communities. Most of the breweries that defined Milwaukee are gone, as are the automobile parts factories, and that has dealt an economic body blow to tens of thousands of unskilled workers in the city.
But what about George Bush’s roaring economy?
At a gathering of law-enforcement officials in Chicago last week, Barrett complained that Washington has cut federal funding to local police agencies and turned a deaf ear to the crime problems of American cities. Washington, Barrett said, is more concerned about “homeland security than hometown security.”
“Many pro-gun advocates talk about themselves being freedom fighters. But I think the people in this room,” Barrett told the police chiefs, “are the real freedom fighters, because we are the ones that are fighting to allow the grandma to sit on her front porch and not have to worry about a drive-by shooting.”
Bushies are pretty much all talk, no walk on homeland security also, in my opinion. Anyway, I got this from a link on the Gun Guys site. The Gun Guys add,
The NRA talks a blue streak about freedom and rights. They complain all day long about how their gun guys should have the right to own any kind of weapon they want, and how it’s just tough for us that we have to deal with all the gun violence. They claim that the Second Amendment gives them a shield against any kind of regulation. They just want us to suffer through the tragedies, to just deal with the gun deaths, while they continue to erode any power our authorities have against firearms.
Meanwhile, in New York City — home of all those rampaging black men that Michelle Malkin says it’s OK to shoot — violent crime continues to decline. Cara Buckley reported in the New York Times (March 28, 2007):
The recent fatal shootings of two auxiliary police officers and a restaurant worker in Greenwich Village hark back to a time when New York City’s streets were far more deadly. But the city’s year-to-date homicide rate is at its lowest point since before the Police Department started tracking crime using current record-keeping techniques in 1962.
According to the department figures, 84 homicides were reported citywide from Jan. 1 through Sunday, an average of exactly one killing a day. That was down 28 percent from 117 during the same period last year.
The first-quarter numbers continue what has been a downward trend in overall serious crime in the city.
Although the number of homicides in the city increased last year to 596 from 540 in 2005, total figures for all the major crimes the department tracks — including murder, rape, robbery and assault — dropped 4.7 percent in 2006.
By early indications, the decrease in violent crime in New York City continues to defy nationwide trends. After falling for several years, homicide, gun assault and robbery rates across the country rose by double-digit percentages in 2005 and 2006, according to a recent report by the Police Executive Research Forum.
”There isn’t any other big city that continues to show these remarkable results for such a long time,” said David M. Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. ”The national crime decline is over.”
And did I ever mention that New York City has about the strictest gun control laws in the U.S.? I believe I have.
Anyway, I just want to say to all of you in the Midwest who are being terrorized by cowboys and farmers (that was a joke; see the “Safety First” post) should come to New York City and be safe. These days it’s a lot safer in Central Park than in downtown Milwaukee.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/04/bush_on_gun_con.html
I found this Bush quote interesting:
“But the best way to protect our citizens from guns is to prosecute those who commit crimes with guns”
So, according to Bush then, the best way to deal with an attack from a gun wielding criminal, is to deal with them after they commit the crime.
What happened to that pre-emptive mindset?
Just to get the facts straight. Milwaukee has long had a substntial black population and African Americans and Hispanics now constitute a majority of the city’s population due to white flight to the suburbs. Milwaukee also remains one of the most segregated cities in the country. Most of the murders are committed by blacks and most of the victims are black. The absence of good paying relatively low skill jobs is certainly a factor in so many young African American males having the time on their hands to drive around with firearms. Poor educational attainment and a high teenage pregnancy rate do not help, nor does a black leadership which can at best be called uneven. There is little violence in the downtown area, but west and northwest of downtown is another story. The police have had various issues with the black community over the years even when we had an African American police chief who simply was not up to the task. As a result the police do not get the kind of support from the community that would be needed to reign in the crime and of course it is a vicious circle where the lack of community support feeds cynicim and distrust by the police which leads to even less support. The final factor is a subculture of drugs, alcohol, gangs, gangsta rap, clubs and cruising which which leads to violence, sometimes over grievances, real or percieved, and sometimes just for something to do. Not a good situation.One suburb has banned young people from a mall unless accompanied by parents on weekends because African American youth would congregate at the malls movie theaters. A couple of the high schools were required to play their basketball games without fans because fights kept breaking out. The schools banned cell phones because they were being used to call in reinforcements when gang members got into disputes.It appears that there has been a general deterioration in the fabric of society in the city and frankly unless the African American community deals with it, nobody else is going to.
In the West and Plains states, meth is probably the single greatest reason for the increase in crime. Generally speaking, meth is used by white folks, and you can trace its influence back 15-20 years. Malkin was, what? Maybe 2 years old then?
I’d suggest that she talk only about what she knows, but dear me, that would completely silence her.
I presume you can prove all that, Terry?
In a nation rife with corruption and incompetence at the top it seems only a natural consequence that all hell breaks loose on the lower rungs of society.
It takes more than platitudes to govern. Cities may want to hire paramilitary mercenaries to patrol the streets. If they have the oil money to pay for it. For those that can afford it, gated communities are a tempting place to hide. Maybe every city can have either real government or its own green zone.
Regarding what Terry wrote — if Milwaukee has had this “substantial black population” for some time, and aggravated assaults went up 86 percent only recently, then it’s obvious the “substantial black population” is not the cause of the increase in crime. To find the cause one needs to look for new variables, not variables that have been around for a while. To fix blame for a new phenomenon on an old variable is what’s known as “scapegoating.”
Dan and Maha, Iwas born in Milwaukee and moved back here 30 years ago. I read the newspapers and discuss the issues with highly educated and intelligent individuals of all political stripes. I have volunteered my time in inner city–read schools where the majority of students do not come from northern european ancestry-high schools, I work out on practically a daily basis with a guy who is so liberal he makes me seem like Atilla the Hun and who spent 20 years working with the Police and Fire Commission -the group that hears complaints about police and fire fighters in the City of Milwaukee-I am old enough to remember the marches lead by the then Father Groppi to try and integrate Milwaukee and the 1967 riots, so yeah I think I can back up my post. I have no idea how the aggravated assault statistics break down, but I do read about the murders every day, where they occurred, who died and what was going on when they occurred. Some are random but there are recurring themes–someone was thrown out of a bar and comes back with a gun, someone dissed somebody so a car comes by and 5 guys empty their firearms into the house, a carjacking goes bad,there is a fight between cruising youths and somebody fires a gun, etc. It is not a matter of scapegoating–as noted the victims are almost always African Americans and certainly some of the African American newspaper columnists note that fact as the reason for the general indifference of white suburbia about what is going on. That does not change the fact that it is extremely frustrating to see what I guess is my hometown continue to spiral downward without any real hope that it can be reversed.