A lot of Americans think it's a lot worse than it actually is. Pet peeve in real life for me. Crime has had almost steady decline for around 25 years now. During that decline news coverage of crime increased. One of my favorite hobbies is telling people that their children are actually safer than they were as children. No one ever believes me of course.
...Shall Not Be Infringed
- Thread starter arthwollipot
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Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Yup. It's the media, social and otherwise, that delights in spreading every rare occurrence of "stranger danger" as if it was rampant.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The reason I don't believe you is because children in my city aren't noticeably safer than children in my city twenty years ago.
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P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
Child murders have risen in the US. However, 70% are committed by the child's father (Source: Center for Judicial Excellence) and the most commonly used weapon is a gun.
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
"noticeably"
. By who?I be suprised, as crime as fallen almost everywhere, but there are exceptions.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
These days, in my city, people are being told to leave their cars unlocked so that passerby don't have to break the window to get in. Joke's on them, a lot of the window-breakers are just in it to break the windows.
I once owned three handguns and a rifle. They were mostly for target shooting in my possession, but I was aware of the self defense option.
I hoped it would never be required. So far so good.
A friend with bad habits wanted to settle a score over a deal gone bad. He wanted to borrow a loaded gun to do it. He promised me he would return it to me a day after he potentially committed a crime with it.
I realized how stupid some people are and how little they see the consequences of actions.
So I decided to sell them off selectively to responsible and stable people.
Within a year all but one had been confiscated by the police and two of those "stable and responsible " people made really bad choices because they had a new superpower with a gun. One did time for it.
I had them years without any sort of incident at all.
The ones I considered unstable or irresponsible never had a chance, 3/4 of those I then deemed good were not.
I regret not just burying them sometimes. But it taught me that what people tell you about thier character, what you observe before they have that gun, and what actually happens when they do are all different.
It's a feeling of power that changes people.
I felt liberated of a responsibility and risk factor.
But everyone that knew I was potentially selling assured me they were the safest place it could be. Maybe in thier minds. In reality only one was.
I hoped it would never be required. So far so good.
A friend with bad habits wanted to settle a score over a deal gone bad. He wanted to borrow a loaded gun to do it. He promised me he would return it to me a day after he potentially committed a crime with it.
I realized how stupid some people are and how little they see the consequences of actions.
So I decided to sell them off selectively to responsible and stable people.
Within a year all but one had been confiscated by the police and two of those "stable and responsible " people made really bad choices because they had a new superpower with a gun. One did time for it.
I had them years without any sort of incident at all.
The ones I considered unstable or irresponsible never had a chance, 3/4 of those I then deemed good were not.
I regret not just burying them sometimes. But it taught me that what people tell you about thier character, what you observe before they have that gun, and what actually happens when they do are all different.
It's a feeling of power that changes people.
I felt liberated of a responsibility and risk factor.
But everyone that knew I was potentially selling assured me they were the safest place it could be. Maybe in thier minds. In reality only one was.
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dirtywick
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
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what do you think changed in your city?
edit
in my city there’s noticeably more homeless, that’s something that has changed a lot.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist
Statistics say otherwise. But feels speak louder than statistics.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Bad economic times lead to more crime. Trump was supposed to fix the economy, but he's doing the opposite so now he has to crack down on crime to compensate. Of course that's not the real reason he's doing it, but he knows it will get support because most people can't make the connection.
Which is actually quite disturbing. The average person is so thick that they can't see the cause and effect even when their noses are rubbed in it. Then again Trump himself is a convicted felon and fraudster who bragged that he could shoot someone in public and get away with it. The inmates are literally running the asylum now. All we can hope for is that enough people vote to end it while they still have the chance.
Gosh, that's the same kind of thing that used to be said back in the 80s and 90s and which has been repeated by Trump.
Wasn't true then, probably isn't true now, but it won't stop some people saying it (even some people in law enforcement).
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist
Eck-Miller, Sage L., "Real Versus Perceived Crime Rates: Examining Causes of the Disconnect Between Fear and Reality" (2024). Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts. 524.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/utpp/524
Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true. Homer
It was actually true in the 80s and 90s though. At least if you trust the folks that collect such data. Crime, violence, anti-social behavior appears to have increased from about WWII until the 90s. Then it stopped and started decreasing.
Like a lot of things folks think correlate with crime, the economy is not so clearly connected. Seems like it should but it doesn't really, and it leads folks to draw incorrect conclusions.
Oh, I don't doubt that crime was high, what I doubt is that people were advised* to leave their vehicles unlocked at that time to prevent expensive collateral damage in the event that someone was stealing stuff from their car.
I mean it's good practice not to leave valuable items in clear view and to take reasonable precautions to stop stuff being stolen - I had removable stereos and stereos with removable fronts - but leaving your car unlocked to prevent the windows being smashed isn't sensible IMO.
* - advised by authoritative sources, not just some bloke in a pub
When I was in SF, 10ish years ago, that was pretty common advice. So, it's a thing. I generally left my car unlocked. Car theft was relatively uncommon compared to rummaging through the car for anything valuable and portable. Of course, I didn't generally leave anything valuable and one of the times my car was broken into, they didn't even take the change.
And honestly, it was advice from blokes in pubs.
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ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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We just need to learn to celebrate political violence when it happens, to get in the spirit of the second amendment. IT is all about promoting political violence after all.
ponderingturtle
Orthogonal Vector
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But according to noted gun rights activist Charlie Kirk that is not what the second amendment is for it is to promote political violence. So why can't you get behind that?