Choose your metric, create the result you want. Of course, there are more crimes in big cities than in rural areas. There are more people. If you want to compare gun-related homicides, that statistic will still hold up. But if you use the relative populations as your base, it is pretty clear that the more guns exist per capita, and the fewer restrictions on guns in public, those numbers reverse. Rural communities and even cities in gun-rule-lax red states have a disproportionate number of gun homicides per capita than do most rural communities.
The battle, representing a profound schism, is predominantly about gun control. So far the continuing misrepresentation of the 2nd Amendment embodied in the 2008 Supreme Court in Heller vs DC – a case which, after more than two centuries and applying judicial “originalism” (interpreting the Constitution according to the times in which the relevant provision was passed) established a fairly unrestricted right of gun ownership – has produced a litany of federal cases that have almost always ruled in favor of a very free and open permissive view of gun ownership.
As rural communities are often spread out with fewer people per square mile and often distant from law enforcement, frequently embrace hunting in their open space, so large cities have a very opposite reality… where people are compressed and squeezed into constant content with lots of people… where there is no possibility of hunting. Even where urban areas have tried to limit gun ownership within limits that make sense to cities, neighboring rural states are more than happy to sell a gun to a visiting city slicker wanting a weapon, even an AR-15 military grade assault rifle.
But in the battle of crime statistics, as LA Times writer Noah Bierman tells use (September 15th edition): “Democratic and Republican voters differ on which places are safest. But both sides have it wrong… Americans think New York is more dangerous than New Orleans, even though the Crescent City’s homicide rate is 12 times higher this year. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents rank Washington, D.C., as one of the country’s safer big cities, above cities like Miami, where the homicide rate is much lower. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents see Seattle as ominously dangerous, even though Houston has twice the homicide rate so far this year…
“Americans are worried about crime ahead of the 2024 elections, but few have an accurate sense of the problem, according to a Times review of crime data and a recent Gallup poll that asked adults to judge whether 16 major cities are safe places to live or visit.
“Los Angeles, which has had the fifth-lowest homicide rate this year among the 16 cities in the survey, was ranked as the third-most dangerous, with 41% of Americans polled describing it as a safe place to live or visit — the highest number Gallup has ever recorded for the city… A closer look at L.A.’s results shows that partisanship now plays a huge role in Americans’ perceptions of crime and safety.
“Sixty-four percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents ranked L.A. as safe, while only 21% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents gave it the all-clear — the biggest gap in the poll at 43%... The average gap between the two sides’ assessments of cities in the survey was 29 percentage points. That’s a new phenomenon: Political affiliation barely affected the results in 2006, the last time Gallup asked Americans about big-city safety.
“‘People are bad at perceiving crime rates,’ said Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst and consultant who runs AH Datalytics’ widely used website. ‘They’re not good judges of what is or what is not safe in another city.’… Assessing cities’ safety is tricky. Homicide rates spiked across the country during the pandemic and have since fallen, but are still likely to be higher this year than they were in 2019. Auto theft is surging nationally, but some cities, including Los Angeles, are experiencing a small decline. And rates for almost all types of crime have fallen since the early 1990s.”
Social media, a well-fertilized platform for conspiracy theories and misinformation, often form the hub of highly bias-filtered access to news. In short, if the relevant party leaders present a statement or a statistic, members of that party accept the headline without questioning the underlying data. And dig in their heels. When assault weapons were banned under federal statutes from 1994 to 2004 (when a sunset clause terminated the restriction), conservative 2nd Amendment advocates seemed to have accepted the law. Today, reading MAGA statements, you just might believe that open carry, assault weapon ownership, “stand your ground” laws and even a growing body of red state laws that allow concealed carry without a permit have been part of an American tradition since 1776. The year was actually 2008.
Bierman continues: “Republicans have painted Democratic-run cities as dens of crime and disorder since at least the 1960s. Candidates at the Republican presidential primary debate last month talked over one another to decry “hollowed-out cities,” a “national identity crisis” and Democrats who have been “talking about defunding the police for the last five years.”
“Republican criticisms of Democratic big-city leaders have been bolstered by the claims of tech barons such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who have couched safety concerns as part of a broader argument against the ‘woke orientation of certain cities, their ungovernability,’ said Richard Florida, a University of Toronto professor who has written extensively about trends in cities.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has tried to channel that energy in his presidential campaign, claiming in a recent video he posted from San Francisco that he had seen people defecating and using crack cocaine and other drugs on the street, and warning of a “collapse” resulting from ‘leftist policies.’… Fox News has reinforced those impressions with frequent segments on homelessness and drugs in big cities on the West Coast.”
Republicans are also fighting to resurrect the 1996 Dickey Amendment, which effectively banned using federal money to collect civilian gun homicide statistics. If that had applied today, we would not know that gun deaths are the leading cause of fatalities among children and teens. When facts and truth are no longer trustworthy, where competing visions of America are at odds of where the truth lies, is there any possibility for a meaningful bi-partisan compromise for our future?
I’m Peter Dekom, and there are too many powerful forces on both sides of the aisle in horrible denial of the most important facts needed to guide this nation into a viable future.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment