Criminal Deeds

[kandrathe]

I think the correct comparisons are with international statistics, not anecdotes - and between countries roughly comparable with the US (Canada? UK?) rather than China. There will always be tragedies that put one or another topic in the news, but this is not a sane way to make policy.

First, when I heard about this on the radio I cried for an hour. Then, I shared it with my wife, and we cried together for an hour. We have a 4th grader, and our elementary school is no different than that in Newtown.

I think there are at least four types of homicidal violence in the US. Those used as a tool in commission of a different crime (robbery, rape, etc.), gang related turf defense, domestic altercations, and this other type of psychopathic homicidal outburst. Before you can equate statistics from place A to place B, you need to balance for all the other factors. If you want to see tough gun laws and their failure to change crime, look to Chicago with over 500 homicides this year. If you want to compare Chicago to international cities, try Caracas, Mogadishu, Bogata, Bangkok, or Juarez. You need to find places with the same levels or corruption, poverty, crime, and desperation. Amsterdam is a fairly peaceful place with ~3-4 homicides per 100000, whereas Chicago is more like 18 per 100000.

I've only seen a few places in Europe that were not socially serene. So, it's apples to potatoes really. I think much of my state is like northern Europe actually, and most of the violence occurs in sections of an urban ghetto. This year in Minnesota we had about 96 murders and manslaughter cases (53 in the Twin Cities) for 5.3 million people, where about 40-45% of them own guns.

If you want to look at places like Newtown... you have Norway, and Breivik, who maneuvered through many legal channels to obtain the murder weapons he needed including access to explosives. He was willing to go extensive lengths. I don't think laws would stop people like him. A woman in Florida recently got fired, then ran down her boss with a car. A close relative had a psychopathic stalker come after her and her friends with a knife. The terrorists who took down the WTC, did it with box cutters.

When it comes to homicide, I'm actually more upset about the other three common forms of violence, rather than these random psychopaths. If Biden offers some ideas for helping people deal with psychologically troubled relatives, I'll be flabbergasted. If that helps identify and prevent even one homicidal case, then I'll be totally dumbfounded.

If Biden has any new ideas on how to eradicate violent crimes and urban street gangs, the drug wars, and kids killing kids -- then I'd say WTF took them so long to implement it?

If Biden can do anything to curb domestic violence, then again, what have they been doing holding it back?

No, I'm afraid the answer will be the usual "feel good" fare of more laws for the lawful. We have to do something knee-jerk, in response to these aberrant fractions of 1% of violence in the US. It's just like the TSA. How many "terrorists" have they found now over the past decade? Like that one ex-army guy from Jamaica, right?