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Taking Stock of a Most Violent Year
Wall Street Journal ^ | January 24, 2021 | Heather Mac Donald

Posted on 01/25/2021 9:51:23 AM PST by karpov

The year 2020 likely saw the largest percentage increase in homicides in American history. Murder was up nearly 37% in a sample of 57 large and medium-size cities. Based on preliminary estimates, at least 2,000 more Americans, most of them black, were killed in 2020 than in 2019. Mainstream media and many politicians claim the pandemic caused this bloodbath, but the chronology doesn’t support that assertion. And now the criminal-justice policies supported by President Biden promise to exacerbate the current crime wave, while ignoring its actual causes.

The local murder increases in 2020 were startling: 95% in Milwaukee, 78% in Louisville, Ky., 74% in Seattle, 72% in Minneapolis, 62% in New Orleans, and 58% in Atlanta, according to data compiled by crime analyst Jeff Asher. Dozens of children, overwhelmingly black, were killed in drive-by shootings. They were slain in their beds, living rooms and strollers. They were struck down at barbecues, in their yards, in malls, in their parents’ cars, and at birthday parties. Fifty-five children were killed in Chicago in 2020, 17 in St. Louis, and 11 in Philadelphia. In South Los Angeles alone, 40 children were shot, some non-lethally, through September.

Why this mayhem? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses the conventional wisdom: because of the “economic, civic and interpersonal stress” from the coronavirus pandemic. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed pandemic-related “frustration, anger . . . trauma and mental health challenges.” But crime fell during the first months of the pandemic shutdowns, both in the U.S. and globally. Only at the end of May did that trend reverse itself, and only in the U.S., thanks to a surge in drive-by shootings.

Eighteen people were murdered in Chicago on May 31—the city’s most violent day in six decades, according to University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial
KEYWORDS: blm; cultureofcorruption; democratscandals; sorosda
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1 posted on 01/25/2021 9:51:23 AM PST by karpov
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To: karpov
Eighteen people were murdered in Chicago on May 31...

That's eleven more than Al Capone got on February 14, 1929.

2 posted on 01/25/2021 9:57:28 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ("Women's intuition" gave us the Salem witch trials and Kavanaugh hearings. Change my mind.)
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To: karpov

I want to know suicides and deaths from neglect and apathy from the “Alone-together,” baloney.


3 posted on 01/25/2021 10:03:40 AM PST by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
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To: karpov

“....at least 2,000 more Americans, most of them black, were killed...”

Looks like all those white supremacists acting on structural racism and gun show loopholes are clearly the problem. /sarcasm


4 posted on 01/25/2021 10:13:27 AM PST by Made In The USA (Ellen Ate Dynamite Good Bye Ellen)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
Chicago:71% of Murderers Are Black; 3.5% of Murderers Are White

Democrats: OMG! 3.5%! That's terrible! We need to disarm white people!

5 posted on 01/25/2021 10:14:17 AM PST by RC one (Lying, cheating, deceiving & manipulating are as natural to Democrats as swimming is to fish.)
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To: karpov

The guy who shorts GME has stopped talking about it because the fans are so nutty. He might be afraid they will get violent.

The price action today is just insane..and it is all over a group of people on reddit.


6 posted on 01/25/2021 10:14:24 AM PST by RummyChick (To President Trump: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3923111/posts)
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To: RC one

How many murders are committed with rifles? Very, very few. How many with “assault rifles”? Almost none.


7 posted on 01/25/2021 10:16:40 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ("Women's intuition" gave us the Salem witch trials and Kavanaugh hearings. Change my mind.)
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To: karpov
The 1994 book, The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, is validated more and more every day.
8 posted on 01/25/2021 10:24:12 AM PST by Carl Vehse
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To: karpov
>>Why this mayhem? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses the conventional wisdom: because of the “economic, civic and interpersonal stress” from the coronavirus pandemic.

Same fallacy that “Islamic terrorists attack because unemployment is high”. Osama Bin Laden and Yassir Arafat were billionaires.

Soros DAs are letting violent offenders out of jail and with little or no bond so they commit atrocities again and again after having been convicted and incarcerated or even while awaiting trial for other violent offenses.

9 posted on 01/25/2021 10:25:08 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Call on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
I know. I hate to sound racist BUT AR15s have murdered less than 400 people in the past 40 years while black men have murdered about 300,000 people in the same time period. That doesn't seem like America has an AR15 problem. I guess if AR15s voted for democrats as reliably as black men, Democrats wouldn't have a problem with them either.


10 posted on 01/25/2021 10:35:22 AM PST by RC one (Lying, cheating, deceiving & manipulating are as natural to Democrats as swimming is to fish.)
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To: RC one

Of those 400 murders, how many would have been prevented by outlawing AR-15’s. Probably none. The killers would simply have obtained a different firearm.


11 posted on 01/25/2021 10:48:56 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ("Women's intuition" gave us the Salem witch trials and Kavanaugh hearings. Change my mind.)
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To: RC one

Vermont has one of the highest rates of firearm ownership and lowest homicide rates in the country. World actually. Just like Switzerland. What do Vermont and Switzerland have in common that they do not share with Chicago?

No, not (just) great skiing.


12 posted on 01/25/2021 10:52:14 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ("Women's intuition" gave us the Salem witch trials and Kavanaugh hearings. Change my mind.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Vt. is well on it’s way, Rutland is now Somaliville:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/vermont-refugees-burlington-214464


13 posted on 01/25/2021 10:54:33 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Right. I just love it when Bernie Sanders accuses Trump of being a racist when he represents the whitest state in the country. Ok, Vermont and Maine are tied for whitest state in country if we’re being technical but still.


14 posted on 01/25/2021 11:04:01 AM PST by RC one (Lying, cheating, deceiving & manipulating are as natural to Democrats as swimming is to fish.)
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To: karpov

Huh? The year is barely started.


15 posted on 01/25/2021 11:27:18 AM PST by null and void (My personal pronouns: "He He", if you don't get my joke, "Hmmm?", if you don't like my joke "Hisss!")
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To: RC one
AR15s have murdered less than 400 people in the past 40 years

Did you mean to say:

AR15s have been used to murder less than 400 people in the past 40 years

16 posted on 01/25/2021 11:38:09 AM PST by null and void (My personal pronouns: "He He", if you don't get my joke, "Hmmm?", if you don't like my joke "Hisss!")
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To: karpov

“The city (Portland) scrapped the Gun Violence Reduction Team last June at the urging of Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, then the council’s lone Black member, as one of several police reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis officers.

Floyd’s death ignited weeks of demonstrations and social unrest in Portland and around the country.

The specialized unit — which targeted crime hot spots and responded to shootings — had long faced criticism for disproportionately stopping Black people. African Americans, who made up about 8% of the city’s population, were subjected to 56% of all traffic and pedestrian stops by the unit, formerly known as the Gang Enforcement Team, in 2017 and 61% of all the team’s stops in 2016, according to a 2019 city audit.”

This is from Oregon Live


17 posted on 01/25/2021 11:38:36 AM PST by Pining_4_TX (‘You can drive out Nature with a pitchfork, but she keeps on coming back.’ – Horace)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
The killers would simply have obtained a different firearm.

Because no murders are ever done without a firearm, right?

Please don't fall into using their playbook, please?

18 posted on 01/25/2021 11:41:10 AM PST by null and void (My personal pronouns: "He He", if you don't get my joke, "Hmmm?", if you don't like my joke "Hisss!")
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To: null and void

My point was that if “assault rifles” are outlawed, they will be replaced by other semiautomatic weapons, often more lethal. It is not the “assault” part that makes any discernable difference. The only people who use the term “assault weapons” are the anti-gun nuts.


19 posted on 01/25/2021 12:14:36 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ("Women's intuition" gave us the Salem witch trials and Kavanaugh hearings. Change my mind.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

My point is what you said can be used to “justify” outlawing all guns. Better to focus on murderers, not guns to day, knives tomorrow, clubs the next day, non-self driving cars the day after, then hammers...


20 posted on 01/25/2021 12:23:02 PM PST by null and void (My personal pronouns: "He He", if you don't get my joke, "Hmmm?", if you don't like my joke "Hisss!")
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