zlacker

>America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns.

Color me skeptical. Does banning certain drugs prevent drug-related crime? These kinds of indirect proposals (e.g. ban guns), that purport to solve complicated social problems (e.g. crime-rate) never pan out, but they are attractive because it FEELS like they are the answer - especially if you already have an ideology that underpins that belief.

> But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)

Of course it did. That's exactly why that bill was passed.

>because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”.

Because those companies are the most impacted by crime, petty or otherwise. Gated rich communities were perfectly fine.

>Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more.

None of the things you present as explanations are actually supported by anything. You're putting out explanations that you FEEL are correct based on your own ideology and biases. City, State and Federal governments spend an inordinate amount of money already. Maybe they should spend more, but I don't see evidence that that will lead to outcomes you think it will.

>It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).

Don't gas-light. Pull up the crime and homicide rates of a few American cities and compare to Europe. Clearly, America is an outlier.

>>macspo+(OP)
Banning guns _absolutely does work_. Ask the people of Australia or Scotland whether gun bans work. It doesn’t eliminate violent crime, but it has an _absolute_ effect on both the terror and spread of same. (Yes, some people switch to knives or bats, but such people are going to find their ways to be violent just as people who want to pretend that gun bans don’t work will conveniently ignore the majority of countries who have gun bans and lower violent crime rates.)

Your assertion that the reason crime bills were passed is “we need to make our communities safer” is nonsense. It’s the reason that was sold to terrified Americans—and most of the terror was provided by the news, not the reality. (IIRC, the crime rates were _already dropping_.) The reasons that they were passed is a) racism, b) profit, c) power, and d) racism.

And yes, America’s an outlier. But mostly because it also has the widest wealth gap in the developed world (_mostly_ predicated on race, but not exclusively).

I’m not gaslighting anyone—I’m telling you straight up that America’s crime problems—such as they exist are:

1. Incorrect, usually radicalized, reporting in a way that supports the _fear_ that there is more crime than there is; 2. Overpolicing and overprosecution, especially of minority persons; 3. the effects of extended systemic racism and the casual acceptance of white supremacy in policing; and 4. poverty and the criminalization of being poor or otherwise disadvantaged.

If people have no hope, what do you expect?

>>halost+sg1
You just assert things as facts. You assert that American gun rights are the cause of levels of crime. You assert the wealth gap is responsible for levels of crime. You assert the intent of the crime bill was "a) racism, b) profit, c) power, and d) racism". That is not true. The 90s were not Jim Crow 1890s. People did actually care about crime and impact of crime and it was really bad. Did people just forget that during the 70s, 80s and 90s crime destroyed inner-cities? That the urban renaissance of the 2000s didn't actually occur until AFTER crime-rates started to fall? Also, it is a well known fact (though conveniently ignored) that the crime bill had the support of minority communities and minority leaders, because it's not pleasant to live and raise children in a neighborhood with gang violence, crime and open drug use.

You have no basis for anything of those things.

>2. Overpolicing and overprosecution

America has an over-sentencing problem. American prison sentences are higher than anywhere in the world. The people who are actually in prison, are guilty of the crimes they are accused of being guilty, the difference is that in Europe a rapist may get probation, while here (e.g. Weinstein) gets 23 years.