Violent crime up for 1st time in 5 years - NRA blamed (duplicate threads merged)

[Third_Rail]

I always thought that overall, crimes involving firearms were relatively small compared to knives, etc.?

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I would think that the fact that crime in Illinois went UP would be a sort of "hoist with

their own petard", by simple truths?

1. Nobody can legally carry a concealed weapon in Illinois.
2. Criminals carry weapons concealed and use them, as evidenced by street crime.
3. Therefore, concealed weapons prohibition is not effective.

And also:

1. Guns must be registered in Illinois
2. Criminals are shooting people with unregistered or stolen guns.
3. Therefore, the registry is not useful.

And even:

1. It is very difficult for a law-abiding citizen to own a gun in Chicago.
2. The number of guns in Chicago is hundreds or thousands of times the number of legal

permits.
3. Therefore, the legal permit laws ARE NOT WORKING.

If the concealed weapons prohibition is not effective,
if the registry is not useful,
if the permit laws are not working,
the answer is obvious: MORE OF THE SAME ineffective, useless, unworkable laws.

Equally obvious is that punishing criminals for violent crime is judgemental
and vindictive and not respectful of the criminal's life style.

 

[longeyes]

I wonder how much increase of crime is caused by the increased illegal alien population.

From the Los Angeles news media there seems to be a lot of Hispanics on the wanted list.

Shssss. Just one more of those optical illusions going around. Couldn't be a connection. They just come here to work.

 

[baz]

Don't blame TX or FL

Okay, so the national murder rate is up overall. And up pretty significantly in Houston, TX. But when I look at all the TX cities listed here, declines in the rest of the state wipe out the increase in Houston, and there may have been one, net, more in 2005 than in 2004.

When I look at the FL cities listed, there was a pretty healthy decline overall, with the cites listed being down 21.

Since the MSM like to generalize, how about these generalizations:

Concealed carry works. In FL, murders were down significantly in 2005, compared to 2004. In TX, thanks to concealed carry, the state held its own against the influx of all the Katrina thugs.

Yeah, let's see if that gets reported.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Actually, I think statistics can be useful, in the right hands. But the MSM only likes to report statistics mangled by the wrong hands.

The big problem with the FBI data is that so far, it is not detailed enough. As others have noted, no per capital details, no socio-economic context, and so on.

 

[xd9fan]

All that education...and he's still dumb as a box of rocks.......

 

[JesseJames]

You know, I am what most of you guys would consider a fence-sitter on the whole fight for gun rights issue.
But stories like this are pushing me more and more in considering joining the NRA. Something that I've been real hesitant about because generally, I don't believe much in being part of a "club". Community sure, but club?

I actually went to the NRA website and clicked on the "join" link and stared at the membership fees page.

 

[Zundfolge]

I actually went to the NRA website and clicked on the "join" link and stared at the membership fees page.

The American Rifleman magazine and the free window stickers are worth the cost of membership

 

[JesseJames]

Man, I am depressed. I was all happy in buying a new AR style rifle for myself for Christmas.
I knew that the federal AWB expired. But now I learn that CT has state legislation AWB.
I am truly disgusted. And (R)Congressman Chris Shays supports the ban.

Connecticut. Once the gun cradle of Western civilization. Now I can't buy a gun that was originally manufactured here. Chrissakes.

It may be time to get involved.

 

[romma]

But now I learn that CT has state legislation AWB.

Actually JesseJames, you can get pretty cool ar-15 rifles still. I bought a Bussmaster xm-15 M4gery a few months ago. No collapsable stock, but it is styled like one. No flash supressor, but the barrel is ported like one. Would I have liked those features? Absolutely. It is still an awesome weapon that has the Evil black style at least.

 

[JesseJames]

Yeah, but I know what I want. And I am a bit of a stickler.

Why do I have to sacrifice personal freedom choices because of some irresponsible morons?:banghead:

 

[Zen21Tao]

Criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime, a product of dramatic declines in the 1990s and the abandonment of effective programs that emphasized prevention, putting more police officers on the street and controlling the spread of guns.

I would agree in the sense that Dems have created a complacency when it comes to crime through it’s socialist view that the government will take care of its people so that the people don’t have to take care of themselves. Clinton abandoned the concept of punishing the criminal in favor of the idea of banning a line of weapons hardly every used in crimes to provide those ignorant of firearms with the illusion that crimes are being prevented.

"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "Funding for prevention at the federal level and many localities are down and the (National Rifle Association) has renewed strength."

Ah, hum. And which party cuts the budgets of law enforcement insisting that taking weapons out of the hands of criminal will prevent them from committing crime? What in hell does the NRA have to do with federal funding for law enforcement? The NRA is not shy on stating its opinion that law enforcement agencies put cops on the street and prosecute criminals rather than put that money into stupid programs that try to ban only one kind of weapon. Hello, when criminals are deprived of one weapon they just get another.

Fox cautioned against reading too much into year-to-year changes in individual cities, saying some differences result from random variation and marked swings the previous year. Also, some large statistical increases result from some small numerical changes.

Yes but there is also a statistical rule called “regression to the mean” which contends that extreme measurements will eventually regress back to more average measurements. For example, a basketball player with a normal 50/50 free through average that shoots say 60 in a couple of games is more likely to fall back to his natural average than maintain an extreme scores. In this case if the crime rate around 2001 was at an all time low then statistical probability alone asserts that it is more likely for the crime rate to return to a more average rate than maintain such extreme lows.

 

[Sylvan-Forge]

... per capita ...

 

[Zundfolge]

The more I look at this issue, the more convinced I am that crime rates have risen across the nation because New Orleans dumped at least 100,000 criminals into communities accross the country.

New Orleans has apparently lost about 40% of its population.
The most recent U.S. census put New Orleans' population at 484,674 and the population of Greater New Orleans at 1,337,726. So that's between about 190,000 and 535,000 people who haven't returned (most of which I'm sure are decent people, but NOLA had more than its share of criminals).

When they where in NOLA they were left alone by the police but now that they are out in areas that actually keep track of crime they are committing crimes that are being recorded.

I seem to recall the city of Houston tried to bill the city of New Orleans for the extra police bill caused by the increase in crime caused by NOLA refugees.

 

[1911Tuner]

NO Misfits

Zundfolge....... I like it! I think you're probably closer to the truth than on the face of it. Look at what happened to southern Florida after the Cuban boat refugee influx. Castro simply opened his prisons and asylums and gave'em a ticket. Smart move. Got rid of his problems and made'em ours.

 

[BFWE]

Reading this on my lunch break and don't have time to read the whole thing. I thought I would throw this into the discussion and get back with ya'll latter and I appoligize if I'm repeating someone else or distracting the line of reasoning.

This is my take on why crime is up:

• A lot of crime statistics have to do with how crimes are reported to the FBI for that agency to compile the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).
• There may be a spike in the male 16-21 year old population -- historically a spike in this segment of the population has always equated to higher crime stats.

The UCR numbers are tied to Federal funding. That makes it more political than an actual useful tool. I have not checked on the general population trends and the number of "target" males. I'll try to do this and post about what I find latter. However, when I worked as a PO in Harris Co., Texas this was always something we paid attention to and was a suprizingly accurate indicator of where we could expect to see the distribution of our arrest, ticketing, etc.

 

[Art Eatman]

More than any one factor, violent crime (with or without guns) is tied to demographics: How many of the population are in the age group of around 16 to around 25.

This number declined during the 1990s, and is now on the rise. This is based on an article I read (somewhere, damfino) a couple or three years back, predicting that this age group would increase in numbers and that the violent crime rate would, also.

I haven't checked year-by-year census dat and estimates.

Art

 

[PCGS65]

Mandewolf
FYI, In Illinois face to face gun trans do not have to be registered. But if you buy from FFL you have too.
Also in chicago it's illegal to own a gun period(legally that is)unless your a LEO or an alderman. Alderman can CC.
I'm not nit picking your post and I agree with it.

 

[Selfdfenz]

JesseJames

Zundfolge hit the nail on the head as either of the mags are worth the price.

Join the NRA.

S-
NRA Life Member

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

UCR

We had a situation in St. Louis in 05 about our PD's under reporting on UCR. It seems that certain types of crimes, such as acquaintance rape, were not reported.

The attesting officer would make a "memo for file", not a police report, so the event never hit the crime stats.

Our Socialist Newspaper, the Bejing Dispatch caught the practice, and the numbers were revised by the Chief. Knowing how lazy newspaper people are, I'm just wondering if this was a trend in the nation. "If it works in STL, lets do it in Cincinnati, etc."

Feedback folks?

 

[Gordon Fink]

So what went wrong after the 1960s?

If anything, it was our various “wars” against abstractions: “wars” on poverty, guns, drugs, and now terror.

~G. Fink

 

[Manedwolf]

Also in chicago it's illegal to own a gun period(legally that is)unless your a LEO or an alderman. Alderman can CC.

So why aren't politicians pointing to this constantly? Two basic facts there.

1. Guns are illegal in Chicago.
2. There ARE STILL LOTS OF GUNS IN CHICAGO.

Ergo, the laws don't work! Man. They could point that out everyday!