Murder is at a forty year low, the lowest since the 60’s – you know, the decade of love that led to surge in violent crime.
Well, this is a good thing. I think the credit goes to all the people out there who didn’t murder… or didn’t murder as many people as they originally planned. To all those people who decided to punch the person they hate instead of strangling him, to all those who decided on marital counseling instead of murdering his or her spouse for the insurance money, to all those who decided on stamp collecting instead of serial killing – this achievement belongs to you. As for me, last year ranks among my top years of not killing people.
Of course, this low amount of murders might not be a good indicator. What I’m curious about is if there was an increase in attempted murder along with this decline in murder. That would mean that criminals have just gotten too dumb to successfully murder people. So, all this low murder rate could mean is our public schools are failing our children.
Also, many murders each year are from gang members, and the popularity of the “gangsta style” firing – holding the gun sideways to look cool – could have led to gangs being less lethal since you can’t hit jack holding the gun like that.
So, the low murder rate could mean one of two things: we’ve gotten less violent, or we’ve gotten dumber.
Something to think about.
Could be simple laziness. Are maimings up?
I vote for the stupider option.
My answer is C: neither. We are just as violent and just as smart, but entertainment quality/quantity has increased.
Face it: what would you rather do? Buy an expensive gun and shoot people, or play an online game accessible from any libary/home?
Now, you might argue about the movie quality, but, we have lost nothing from the past. You can still watch a movie from the 80s. You can now just watch a movie from the 90s or today as well. Even if 90% of what hollywood churns out is crap, since they make over 150 movies/year, that means 15 good movies are made. That’s about 30 hours people will have to be sitting and watching a movie, when they could be out killing people.
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::waving gun::
Oooh I’m angry now. I think I’ll go commit a violent crim so I can feel better.
Crim? I guess I fall into the stupider category. That makes me even more likely to go out and be violent… gangsta style.
hmmm …. and here I thought it might just be that we’re keeping the perps in the slammer where they belong …. or maybe frying their butts to let them know they were bad ….
There is an interesting discussion of this phenomenon here.
To summarize, neither the article’s author nor I support abortion in any way, but it appears that abortion is to blame (thank?) for the lowered crime rate. Roe vs. Wade was in 1973 and crime rates started to fall in the 90s.
The idea is that the people who had abortions were mostly the kind of people who weren’t fit to raise law-abiding children. The thing that really makes this believable for me is that some states legalized abortion several years earlier than Roe vs. Wade, and in those states, the crime rate began to fall exactly that number of years earlier. The article is worth reading (IMHO).
Actually, I guess what I was talking about is a bit different from the article Frank linked. Still interesting though…
Well, that “gangsta” sideways-grip so often seen in videos & movies SHOULD be as effective if the intended target is at arm’s-length….
Decrease in murders could also be due to the well-known global shortage of earplugs & hearing protectors. One time I neglected to put mine on while target shooting (Colt Anaconda .44 mag)
— after firing three rounds my ears began ringing.. LOUDLY…. took nearly a week for it to subside.
Always wondered how in a movie, a bunck of actors could have a gun battle with dozens (hundreds) of rounds fired in an office, warehouse, whatever – and NOT spend the rest of the scene shouting “WHAT?”, “HUH?”, etc! 🙂
I think it goes with the increase in concealed carry and gun ownership. They didn’t say deaths were down, just that murders were. It’s not murder when I use my legally concealed weapon correctly (upright) to shoot some stupid gangsta holding his gun sideways trying to shoot me.
The part I found interesting in the Fox report was this:
So we’re becoming more like a bunch of civilized Yankees? Now that’s worth killing over!
I recently saw where one of the aftermarket gun site makers has come out with a set of gun sites made to be put onto the side of a semiauto pistol for those people who want to shoot sideways. Of course it would require three sets of sites to be able to shoot ambedextiorusly.
The Freakonomics answer is that most of the crime reduction which started in the 90’s is due to Roe v. Wade in the early 70’s. Of course, Dr. Bennett tried to address this on his radio program, was quoted out of context by the leftist press and Dem politicians and the discussion ended. Rather than be Mau Mau’d I won’t take a position on this theory.