I will say that I am amazed that something so serious, that has such a devasting effect has been treated so flippantly. The War on Gun Crime! A recent NY Post Article, NYC knows how to stop this crime surge-it just needs politicians willing to do it, by Bob McManus compelled this post. Mr. McManus’ two main points:
- New York’s elected leaders, right across the board, simply don’t give a damn about public safety. If they did, such things wouldn’t be happening.
- Each is a problem that has already been solved once — painfully and controversially, to be sure, but solved as decisively as such challenges can be in a dynamic and intrinsically fractious city.
This is not confined to NYC. Look around, pick a city.
There has been a “big” push in recent years to focus on what professionals are calling crime guns that has resulted in the formation of numerous Crime Gun Intelligence Centers (or something like it; with or without the direct support of the ATF) across many cities and a few vendors either directly focusing on firearms or indirectly, by offering technologies that could be purposed for violent crimes. Fast forward to 2020, add in the defund the police movement, the riots, the attacks on the brave men and women that serve and the lack of support for them and you will see an already massive problem, street shootings, get even worse.
According to Giffords.org: Gun violence has an outsized economic impact on Americans beyond the devastating human toll it wreaks on society. Economists estimate that gun violence costs the American economy at least $229 billion every year, including $8.6 billion in direct expenses. Gun violence costs each American roughly $700 every year. Add to the fact, also from Giffords.org, that the gun violence epidemic hits underserved communities of color particularly hard. Gun homicide rates in these neighborhoods have reached a crisis point. Gun homicides are concentrated in cities, and within cities, gun violence is further clustered among racially segregated, economically disenfranchised neighborhoods. Black Americans are 10 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide.
So then I ask, why do we as a country and in our cities, really not take gun crime serious? Don’t agree with that statement? Allow me to provide some evidence:
- NYC has had 27 years of astonishing shooting reductions (until this year), yet many cities never really tackled the problem to the same levels all these years later. (See McManus bullet point above)
- The skyrocketing of shootings in 2020, in some cases over 100% increases with no beating of the drum to bring this to an immediate stop.
- A recent comment by a major county sheriff: “We talked with law enforcement leaders across the country and nobody can really put their finger on what’s driving that,” The Sheriff said. “But you’ve got increases across-the-board nationwide. We have a 20% increase in homicides, 20% increase in aggravated battery, 40% increase in overdose deaths.”
- Not a meaningful word about the innocent bystander 20-year-old Indiana University student shot and killed in Brooklyn NY last week while on his “dream trip to NYC”.
- The 1,093 children killed and the 2,985 injured by guns in the US so far this year according to GunViolenceArchive.org that is included in the 15,428 people killed in the US so far. By comparison the Washington Post (9.25.20) reports approximately 100 children have died so far this year due to COVID including 18 states that reported no deaths of children, yet the extreme measure of closing schools is in full effect.
I am simply tired and fed up of reading how we take gun crime in this country seriously. How the systemic racism by the police is a problem while the government has shut down the country and kids are home from school as a result of the pandemic. Where are the real politicians, and by extenstion the Police Chiefs who serve at a politicians leisure, who care for the communities they serve? Is this not the most important issue to address in the communities that need this attention? I think it is and any one playing “politics” makes them incompetent and feckless. And if you think adding more gun laws to the books is the answer, you simply have not spent anytime on the “street”.
Look for my next post…I will explain a Crime Gun Intelligence strategy. Easy? Yes, on paper. To do the actual work? No, you need brave men and women and strong capable leadership. To have the will? Apparently not. I don’t see too many leaders willing to do what is right.
