[ValerieUSA]

Washington did what LIBERALS said she should do. Conservatives may have had a few different suggestions such as:
Do NOT name your American kid after an enemy of America.
Choose a decent man and marry him before you have children.
Don't say "we've" failed our kids, when you have failed your kid - if you did fail him. Someone else murdered him when he was 18 years old - how is that your (or our) failure?

[corsair]

Oakland, California has a chronically inferior social structure.

Oakland is having an upsurge in murder in 2002.

Wait and see, the Oakland and Bay Area gun control nuts will soon slither out of the cracks once again and blame the guns.

There are a lot of good, law-abiding people in Oakland, but they are traditionally dumber than a big bag of hammers when it comes to situations like this. They will do what demagogue Democrats tell them is right, namely, clamor and demonstrate and whine for more gun control.

Interestingly enough, two-time Democratic governor, Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown is now Mayor of Oakland presiding over this latest crime wave.

[Jeff Chandler]

Jaunnicia, Tequila, Khadafy... do you detect a trend?

[Jeff Chandler]

All members of the "Stupid Name Club".

[river rat]

The killings on American streets, has only just begun.
We have allowed outlaws too much freedom to act.
Semper Fi

[Waco]

The victims MUST have MINIMUM sucess, the perps MUST have MAXIMUM success! A code to live by. ( or die) Feel better everyone?

[Movemout]

..."of the 600 or so youths believed to be responsible for most of the crimes. "

How can you know the source of the problem and not fix it?

[maryz]

Experts say the same factors are always to blame for a spike in murder rates: a lack of jobs in poor minority communities that has left too many young men with little hope for their futures.

Really? Other "experts" I saw quoted in the papers when the murder rate was falling in major cities explained that it was attributable to a demographic dip in the number of young men (late teens, early twenties) who commit most murders relative to their numbers. They predicted the murder rate would rise in another few years because they foresaw this demographic rising again.

[rottweiller_inc]

"When you have young males out of the system with nothing to lose - idle young males selling drugs and guns are everywhere - you're going to have high homicide statistics," said Michael Rustigan, a criminology professor at San Francisco State University.

I wonder what "system" he's refering to.

[coloradan]

Oakland is not alone. Los Angeles, Boston and other cities across the country are seeing a bounce in homicides that experts attribute to a slower economy and an accompanying lack of jobs.

Oakland, LA, Boston - some of the most viciously anti-gun places there are. And Oakland is where a couple of uniformed cops killed an undercover cop, because they saw him holding a gun.

Mayor Jerry Brown planned to ask the City Council on Tuesday to raise taxes by $63.5 million over five years to add 100 officers to Oakland's streets. The taxes would raise the cost of hotel stays, parking, and utilities as well as telephone and cable television.

Gotta love socialism: violate people's right to self defense, and them charge them for it.

[harpseal]

Re: The murder rate in Waco, TX. I have no idea what Waco's rate is but I would note that as of September 11, 2001 New Yark City experienced a bulge in its homicide rate with an additional ,aproximately 3,000. So that should cause some interesting statisrical comparisons later this year.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[OldPossum]

The years-long drought certainly has adversely affected the economic conditions of our farmers but have they started killing each other?

This is typical reasoning by the Bee and its ilk: if you don't have money, then kill others!

[biblewonk]

Oakland is not alone. Los Angeles, Boston and other cities across the country are seeing a bounce in homicides that experts attribute to a slower economy and an accompanying lack of jobs.

What a joke it ought to be on a T shirt. "Patience my ass, if I don't get a job soon I'm gonna kill someone"

[biblewonk]

Most of the victims and suspects have been black men,

Oh no! Don't say that!

[.38sw]

idle young males selling drugs and guns are everywhere

Oakland is very anti-gun. They taxed the last sporting goods store that sold guns a couple of years ago (they levied a special tax on any stores selling guns. the last one, Seigle's, closed not too long ago). Oakland is in Alameda county, where almost no one except state Rep. Don Perata, an vicious anti-gun politician, has a concealed-carry permit. So guns are the problem?

Lack of jobs causing a lack of hope in their young men? Please. My dad grew up in the depths on the great depression. When he was 13, he left home, rode a freight train to California and picked strawberries in the summer. He went back to the midwest in the winter where he lived with his sister and went to school. He didn't resort to crime and murder. Poverty sparks these levels of homicides? It's nothing but a steamin' pile that "lack of jobs" causes these crimes. It's your value system and your upbringing.

[AmericanCompatriot]

Oakland is not alone. Los Angeles, Boston and other cities across the country are seeing a bounce in homicides that experts attribute to a slower economy and an accompanying lack of jobs.

Let's see. I'm out of work and the economy stinks. I think I'll go kill somebody!!! What kind of thought process is that? How about some information on the employment situation for these fine murderers prior to the economy collapsing. Something tells me these are not your middle-class Americans (these are the jobs that get trimmed....not the BIG jobs and not the LITTLE jobs). More junk stats without definition or detail. Every American should be forced to take a JUNK STATS course in college. Oh wait, that would make it so the sheep could see through the fog...and that would go against the liberal-college agenda. Dang! Thought I had something (***sarcasm***).