I don't understand. You are more pro-gun than anti-Chicago so you just flipped to things being ok now in Chicago thanks to guns?

Yeah, it's a great self-fulfilling prophecy sort of situation. Tell people how terrified they should be, then appeal to their emotions instead of facts. "People feel scared!" Yeah, because you keep lying about how scared they should be.

pivoting!

Honestly, are you from the type of neighborhood we are talking about?

Crime has dropped steadily everywhere. This isn't because of policy, although politicians would like you to believe otherwise. Forensic science is progressing at an incredible rate. Criminals are now being put away after their first crime, and wrongful convictions are continuing to go down. That doesn't change how dangerous these liberal cities are relative to the rest of the country. 2016 may be an aberration as some signs point to crime going up this year.

Nobody is from the fictional world you have created in your head.

People who are more desperate are more likely to commit crimes. If you couldn't provide for your basic needs (food, water, shelter), what would you do? Remember, unemployment in your communities is extremely high, so there aren't a lot of jobs to be had, and your friends and family can't afford to help you out much, if at all.

This situation tends to lead to a lot of crime, and crime begets violence. Whether it's petty theft escalating to armed robbery or someone choosing to get into the drug trade thinking (whether correctly or not, they believe it) that it's their only chance at providing for themselves.

Also, most of the crime in these cities, or at least in Baltimore where I'm familiar with it, is concentrated to the areas where economic conditions are poor. If you pull up a map of murders, armed robberies, etc there are very few, if any in the downtown/well off areas (which also raises questions about how the police are using their resources).

If that's how you feel you should vote for the person who lobbied for the 1994 crime bill.

Violent crime rates have been plummeting everywhere for the past quarter century. The only thing that needs to give is this constant idiotic belief that things are always going to hell, facts be damned.

Not at all. I love Chicago, I grew up on the West side. Most of my friends, black, white, and latin from various levels of hoods all feel things have gotten steadily less safe in certain areas of the West and South East Sides. You got stats that say different that's great, and may be it's my old guy perception.


Handgun ownership was illegal in Chicago from 1982 until 2010, you show me a graph with plummeting murder rates in a time when firearms became legal, it's a legitimate to ask about correlation.

Your friends are right. Chicago is definitely trending toward significantly higher crime in the short term. That place is a disaster.

Uh, no. Not since 2010. Every restriction passed by the Legislature and City Council was struck down by the USSC.

Maybe instead of instilling a curfew until the shootings stop, we can try doing something about the weapons that the shootings are coming from.

Crazy idea, I know.

TRENDING TOWARD SIGNIFICANT HIGHER CRIME IN THE SHORT TERM

Yo, 1994 is before 2010. Years go up in number, not down.

Youre forgetting about West Virginia.

If I skip lunch tomorrow I will be trending toward significant malnutrition in the short term.

That graph is already in this thread! You quoted that graph! You can see just how much the murder rate dropped since 2010!

Zomg!There is more crime in places where there are more people? What a newsflash! Inform the media!

Crime is up significantly in Chicago over the past year and a half. I'm not sure what you're blathering on about.

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Actually, if you would like to have a reasonable back in forth, there have been some pretty significant changes over the last 20 years.

Prior to certain guys getting locked up and organizations prosecuted as groups the drug trade was really efficient in Chicago. I am talking about huge open air spots that would do like 30-50k a day in Heroin and Cocaine sales. It was an embarrassment for the city, but there was a little criminal stability. whole areas were controlled by single organizations.

The trend, because of law enforcement and prosecution success, is toward a more decentralized method of selling drugs. I have no idea about total murder rate. but yeah, guys are fighting for spots block to block now, make fun all you want but it's true. You have these independents or loose coalitions battling it out for income.

It sucks, and as a lot of guys point out the whole phony war on drugs does a lot of harm to these areas.

What are you talking about? The murder rate has not gone down since 2010

Dude is shook. I want to hear more about his childhood in war-torn Mogadishu.