I can't tell you how often I've logged in here over the last year only to see that no Hot Topics thread has been active since the last time I logged in, which, over the last year, has been of much longer duration (less than 1 in 5) since that of previous years (at least 4 in 5).
Not that I actually
want a Hot Topics issue to rear its head every time I turn around, so,
perhaps I
should be grateful...
Regardless, the problems with crime that we continue to experience continue to be a problem for precisely the same reasons, at least partially:
A. By far, there's not enough armed law-abiding citizens compared to the criminal population as a whole.
1
Thankfully, I think a lot of these issues lost steam after Black's judgment in Alamogordo. I think they lost more steam after Heller and McDonald. I think they lost even more steam after the 2012 election, where the American electorate made a significant switch, not only to having conservatives in both the House and Senate, but more towards that in many state governments, as well. That trend continued in 2016, to the point where we have the most conservative majority of elected and appointed representatives in each and every office throughout America ever except one: The top 1,000 most populous city mayors. Liberals still hold a majority in that area, almost certainly due to Bloomberg's concentration effort (million$ if not billion$) in his Mayors against guns effort.
The most interesting this about that effort is that despite the fact that population size only correlates with gun violence across the top twenty to fifty cities, all 1,000 of them surged. Obviously, a lot of citizens of even the bottom half of that 1,000 list identify with the largest ones with the most problems.
Quite frankly, I don't know why. If I lived it a big city, I would not EVER aspire to have anything to do with any of these categories:
Category 1: The Most Dangerous Cities in America (
KARE 11, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, October 1, 2016), by Violent Crimes per 1,000 and 2015 murders (strangely enough by violent crime, first, and only then by murder rate):
1. St. Louis, MO: 1,817 / 188
2. Detroit, MI: 1760 / 295
3. Birmingham, AL: 1,746 / 79
4. Memphis, TN: 1,740 / 135
5. Milwaukee, WI: 1,596 / 145
6. Rockford, IL: 1,583 / 19
7. Baltimore, MD: 1,536 / 344
8. Little Rock, AR: 1,485 / 32
9. Oakland, CA: 1,442.5 / 85
10. Kansas City, KS: 1,417 / 109
Category 2: The Most Dangerous Cities in the United States (
WorldAtlas, 2016) (Violent Crimes per 100,000 people for cities with over 250,000 people):
1 Detroit, MI 1,988.63
2 Memphis, TN 1,740.51
3 Oakland, CA 1,685.39
4 St. Louis, MO 1,678.73
5 Milwaukee, WI 1,476.41
6 Baltimore, MD 1,338.54
7 Cleveland, OH 1,334.35
8 Stockton, CA 1,331.47
9 Indianapolis, IN 1,254.66
10 Kansas City, KS 1,251.45
This list roughly agrees with the previous one, so let's proceed to the third, which measures MURDER (
Neighborhood Scout, 2016)
The countdown for the Top 30 Murder Capitals of America:
Rank City
30 Chicago Heights, IL
29 Baton Rouge, LA
28 Buffalo, NY
27 Hattiesburg, MS
26 East Chicago, IN
25 Birmingham, AL
24 Desert Hot Springs, CA
23 Compton, CA
22 Myrtle Beach, SC
21 Fort Pierce, FL
20 Harvey, IL
19 Bridgeton, NJ
18 Flint, MI
17 Rocky Mount, NC
16 Pine Bluff, AR
15 Petersburg, VA
14 Newark, NJ
13 Baltimore, MD
12 Harrisburg, PA
11 Jackson, MS
10 Wilmington, DE
9 Trenton, NJ
8 Riviera Beach, FL
7 New Orleans, LA
6 Camden, NJ
5 Detroit, MI
4 Gary, IN
3 St. Louis, MO
2 Chester, PA
1 East St. Louis, IL
No additional details given.
1This is a change from what I've previously said. However, I've since identified a very decided difference the ratio of (A) armed law-abiding citizens to (B) armed criminals with respect to both the per capita rate of violent crimes and murders. Thus, we can definitively state two near iron-clad axioms at this point:
1. States where the ratio of (A) armed law-abiding citizens to (B) armed criminals is higher will have a distinctively lower per capita rate of both violent crimes and murders.
2. States where the ratio of (A) armed law-abiding citizens to (B) armed criminals is lower will have a distinctively higher per capita rate of both violent crimes and murders.
Given the fact that these correlations are not only strong, but are using rates based not on everyone in the entire population, but those individuals in the population who are either actually using firearms to commit or to stop crimes, these statistics very strongly support, in Kennesaw, GA style, measures to adequately arm and fully train your average law-abiding citizen.
