American Cities with the Highest Increase in Homicide Rates(wallethub.com)
wallethub.com
American Cities with the Highest Increase in Homicide Rates
https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-homicide-rate/94070
4 comments
Gun murders are already exceptionally difficult to solve. (See https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/poli...) I'd be surprised if modded guns make resolution of cases significantly more difficult. At least in the short-term I would expect the opposite, as the guy with the fully automatic is likely going to be well known just for the sheer novelty.
> Easier access to a gun that you believe is untraceable leads people to be more willing to use them to commit murder.
I don't think you could reasonably say the two are cause-effect. The ease of buying a firearm is not directly related to that person using it to commit murder. Unless of course you're being purposely opaque and including defensive uses as "murder".
Do you own firearms within the state of Maryland? Every single purchase is tracked within the MD State Police (MDSP) registry, all rifles, shotguns, & pistols. Pistols are under a higher restriction and require a HQL for purchase. The HQL requires you to take classes and be approved by the MDSP. You then have a 7 day waiting period after purchase for pickup, if you're approved. After your pickup 30 days after that is the next time you can purchase a pistol.
None of those restrictions exist for weapons 16'' or longer, aka rifles & shotguns. There is a banned rifle registry for replica guns. Like you can't purchase a 50 cal in MD. These are still tracked and marked on every purchase. It's not legal purchases which are the problem so cracking down or increasing the difficulty of these doesn't directly influence illegal firearms.
However for all firearms your name is kept along with the details of the firearm at the dealer. There is a paper trail of all purchases with the MDSP. So unless everyone is filing off the serials on all components these are unlikely to be the majority of trafficked firearms. At least for purchases within MD.
Another thing to consider is that dealers around MD won't sell pistols to MD residents because the ATF would get involved with "firearm smuggling". Rifles and shotguns though are easily purchasable over state lines, for those there is no paperwork.
Assuming you're a MD resident you can drive to WV, VA, or PA and purchase a rifle and drive it back over state lines. Completely legally.
> I can only speak for Baltimore but there are people here making and selling guns made from 80% lower receivers and tiny pieces of 3d printed plastic that will make your gun fully automatic.
That's not how automatic weapons work. They're constructed different to handle the heat of automatic fire. A semi automatic weapon is going to warp and malfunction way more quickly with automatic use. Even so to make it seem like this is the critical issue ignores that binary triggers exist. There is always something that exists to circumvent the "safety" laws.
> Just last month there was a Baltimore city police officer who lived in the county caught trading guns and internal information for drugs. If police officers are doing it you can believe that regular citizens are doing it.
I'm not surprised Baltimore is a crime ridden city, hasn't the last few mayors all been convicted of bribery and other things? It's not going to change either because the government in Baltimore is a joke. They don't want to enforce the laws they already have.
I don't think you could reasonably say the two are cause-effect. The ease of buying a firearm is not directly related to that person using it to commit murder. Unless of course you're being purposely opaque and including defensive uses as "murder".
Do you own firearms within the state of Maryland? Every single purchase is tracked within the MD State Police (MDSP) registry, all rifles, shotguns, & pistols. Pistols are under a higher restriction and require a HQL for purchase. The HQL requires you to take classes and be approved by the MDSP. You then have a 7 day waiting period after purchase for pickup, if you're approved. After your pickup 30 days after that is the next time you can purchase a pistol.
None of those restrictions exist for weapons 16'' or longer, aka rifles & shotguns. There is a banned rifle registry for replica guns. Like you can't purchase a 50 cal in MD. These are still tracked and marked on every purchase. It's not legal purchases which are the problem so cracking down or increasing the difficulty of these doesn't directly influence illegal firearms.
However for all firearms your name is kept along with the details of the firearm at the dealer. There is a paper trail of all purchases with the MDSP. So unless everyone is filing off the serials on all components these are unlikely to be the majority of trafficked firearms. At least for purchases within MD.
Another thing to consider is that dealers around MD won't sell pistols to MD residents because the ATF would get involved with "firearm smuggling". Rifles and shotguns though are easily purchasable over state lines, for those there is no paperwork.
Assuming you're a MD resident you can drive to WV, VA, or PA and purchase a rifle and drive it back over state lines. Completely legally.
> I can only speak for Baltimore but there are people here making and selling guns made from 80% lower receivers and tiny pieces of 3d printed plastic that will make your gun fully automatic.
That's not how automatic weapons work. They're constructed different to handle the heat of automatic fire. A semi automatic weapon is going to warp and malfunction way more quickly with automatic use. Even so to make it seem like this is the critical issue ignores that binary triggers exist. There is always something that exists to circumvent the "safety" laws.
> Just last month there was a Baltimore city police officer who lived in the county caught trading guns and internal information for drugs. If police officers are doing it you can believe that regular citizens are doing it.
I'm not surprised Baltimore is a crime ridden city, hasn't the last few mayors all been convicted of bribery and other things? It's not going to change either because the government in Baltimore is a joke. They don't want to enforce the laws they already have.
Kind of a dumb question based on my own anecdotal observations. Is there any chance that mild brain damage to a large portion of the population (say from long covid in select individuals) produces more violent and aggressive tendencies, similar to lead poisoning from leaded gasoline?
Again, completely anecdotal question based on my own observations of myself after having covid (I myself felt very slow mentally and frustrated after having covid), and some of the rise in aggressive tendencies of consumers (e.g. airline passengers and retail consumers), not to mention incidents of road rage.
Edit: help me understand why you’re downvoting. Is it ignorance on my part? I prefaced this by saying it was not an evidence based question
Again, completely anecdotal question based on my own observations of myself after having covid (I myself felt very slow mentally and frustrated after having covid), and some of the rise in aggressive tendencies of consumers (e.g. airline passengers and retail consumers), not to mention incidents of road rage.
Edit: help me understand why you’re downvoting. Is it ignorance on my part? I prefaced this by saying it was not an evidence based question
I don't know about long COVID, but there is definitely an issue with new forms of methamphetamine (specifically, P2P meth) inducing aggression and mental instability in otherwise stable people. Among other sources, The Atlantic published an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...
The lengthy isolation most of us have endured last few years isn't exactly great for mental health, regardless of Covid infection.
As American society slips from being "educated" you're more likely to see violent tendencies. We don't prioritize actual education anymore so people are not able to put to words how they feel or think around their problems.
I have always said anyone who points a gun at another person outside of a self defense scenario has brain damage or a mental illness (Even if it's unknown).
There is a clear difference between being evil and being mentally ill.
I would think that there are other environmental stressors that have influenced the behavior first, specifically the economic stagnation of the middle and working classes, combined with things like the opioid epidemic, income and housing insecurity with everything further exacerbated by the pandemic, social isolation, economic and supply chain constraints and now record inflation, all within the last decade and with minimal support systems available, along with the rise of divisive populist politics permeating everything and social media pushing people into echo chambers that radicalize their opinions even further.
A lot of people are probably beyond stressed and stretched way past their tolerance point by now.
A lot of people are probably beyond stressed and stretched way past their tolerance point by now.
I think if those were the underlying factors we would've seen a rise in the homicide rate earlier than immediately after the beginning of the pandemic.
I think it is a multivariable thing, especially when you are looking at different municipalities and their respective crime policies. A lot of the places that top the list have had rising homicide rates over the past decade from a low around 2010-2015, with the national rate reaching a local low in 2014 before climbing from there. To me it could suggest that populations were coping (poorly) for a while before the pandemic broke the camels back so to speak.
The methodology is highly suspect. They chose 50 of the most populated cities that had data available. Not the 50 most populated cities that had data available.
Where's Indianapolis? Cleveland? Bakersfield?
Where's Indianapolis? Cleveland? Bakersfield?
Q2 of 2020 was one of the weirdest quarters in American history. From covid lockdowns to race riots, to heightened police-civilian tensions; there was nothing normal about it.
I would love to see these exact same graphs juxtaposed against a normal year such as 2019.
Anecdotally, the crime rates in west coast blue city downtowns have skyrocketed. It seems impossible to park your car in Seattle/Portland/SF downtowns and not have it be broken in. The average junkie seems to have gotten more aggressive and bashful too.
I wonder if the rise of p2p meth has something to do with it. (https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/)
I would love to see these exact same graphs juxtaposed against a normal year such as 2019.
Anecdotally, the crime rates in west coast blue city downtowns have skyrocketed. It seems impossible to park your car in Seattle/Portland/SF downtowns and not have it be broken in. The average junkie seems to have gotten more aggressive and bashful too.
I wonder if the rise of p2p meth has something to do with it. (https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/)
Well it's certainly the refusal to convict criminals. After the BLM protests we saw many cities you listed made it illegal to arrest people who steal stuff under a certain threshold (among other crimes), and the threshold was set really high (in San Francisco it was $950). Very predictably this has driven up crime and San Francisco's District Attorney was recalled for the policy.
It's quite possible people have been able to purchase more drugs because of the increased crime, but these policies are why crime has skyrocketed and why we've seen so many videos of people going into stores and stealing garbage bags of stuff
It's quite possible people have been able to purchase more drugs because of the increased crime, but these policies are why crime has skyrocketed and why we've seen so many videos of people going into stores and stealing garbage bags of stuff
* Prop 47 was a state proposition in 2014
* it was not specific to SF
* it predates the 2020 BLM protest
* it did not "[make] it illegal to arrest people"
* It made some thefts in misdemeanors> San Francisco's District Attorney
Predictable outcome of voting Chesa Boudin into power.
> refusal to convict criminals
I know that something similar happened with Pete Holmes in Seattle as district attorney. The attorney's office was so reluctant to prosecute crime, that police stopped responding to minor crimes all together.
As of 2022 both people have been voted out of office despite being in deep-blue electorates. Hopefully this points to a more sensible approach towards policing and prosecution in the future.
Predictable outcome of voting Chesa Boudin into power.
> refusal to convict criminals
I know that something similar happened with Pete Holmes in Seattle as district attorney. The attorney's office was so reluctant to prosecute crime, that police stopped responding to minor crimes all together.
As of 2022 both people have been voted out of office despite being in deep-blue electorates. Hopefully this points to a more sensible approach towards policing and prosecution in the future.
I can only speak for Baltimore but there are people here making and selling guns made from 80% lower receivers and tiny pieces of 3d printed plastic that will make your gun fully automatic. Just last month there was a Baltimore city police officer who lived in the county caught trading guns and internal information for drugs. If police officers are doing it you can believe that regular citizens are doing it.
There are people who are traveling right over the state borders to DE, PA, and VA to buy 30+ round magazines and come back and sell them to people in and around the hood. There has even been 3 shooting this year involving AR15's. One of them involved a fully automatic less than a 1/4 mile up the road from the state police barracks and county courthouse.
Easier access to a gun that you believe is untraceable leads people to be more willing to use them to commit murder. The fact that they only cost around $500-$700, a couple hours of youtube instruction, and you have a cheap tool to commit murder and robberies with. The only saving grace from all of the DIY pistols is the high failure rate for them to jam because of poor construction. And the fact that some of the people illegally carrying haven't practice shooting very much so they have crappy aim.
I was one time shot at for no reason other than in the wrong place at the wrong time and the guy who was just robbed thought I was part of the group that just robbed him. Another time I was trying to stop a violent robbery behind my house by yelling at them from my yard.