Take a nice slow drive around Detroit for example.
4 Likes
Shocker
Public safety over police reform: Detroiters make voices heard in poll; 9-1, they want more police
5 Likes
I can only speak for Salt Lake City. The homeless thing is out of control, they are getting more aggressive and violent by the day. Other than that, for the most part, people are polite to each other, that is until they decide to protest the issue of the day. Even the gangs seem to keep to themselves. Is it possible, could it be, that some of this has to do with our Constitutional Carry laws? I, for one, would have to say it helps.
4 Likes
An armed society is a polite society! 
7 Likes
I can only attest to the conditions in Denver from about a year ago (have not been back since and have no desire to). I was downtown near the State Capital building, and it looked like a third world country- a number of the stores near the State Capital building were boarded up from the rioting (my apologies…. “Demonstrating”…). Some of those businesses were open, and some still closed. Plenty of homeless folks living in the parks around the Capital building and some doing drugs while sitting around, some harassing drivers stopped at the street lights, etc. At that time, all of the entrances into the Capital building had security fences installed, and at all of the building entrances were LEOs wearing vests and carrying rifles (inside the building). My time down there was that one morning and had to walk about 4 blocks from the parking garage to the Capital building- needless to say I was on “high alert” and changed sides of the street multiple times (no concealed carry in the Capital building). Very unsettling to see what downtown had become at that point. Have not been back since and have no plans to spend a dime within the municipal boundaries of The City and County Of Denver until the local elected officials stop pandering to a small vocal element within society and start doing their jobs and support law enforcement and law abiding citizens once again.
7 Likes
Curious how the “war zone” in detroit compares to the one in Kyiv? Or maybe that term “war zone” the OP uses was a typo?
1 Like
Violent crime rate in 2022 is still far lower then it was in the early 1990’s
Case in point murders over time in New York City graphed:
Last year 485:
Warzone not even close.
3 Likes
Potential warzone is taking on a whole new meaning with Russia & China carrying on…
2 Likes
This is an important thing to keep in mind, in my opinion, due to the correlation between more guns, more carry permits, and more Constitutional carry, etc. Not in NY of course but nationally overall, don’t let people confuse the issue…more guns and less violent crime have been trending together for some time now.
Correlation vs causation is up for grabs, but, fact is…we are seeing more guns, more gun carriers, and less crime. 
3 Likes
Most Americans have no concept of what a warzone really is. We freak out if our WiFi goes out or our favorite brand of organic multi-grain bread is out of stock.
3 Likes
I got a CCW not to add to the numbers of guns in the country, rather because of the number of guns in the country. I live in New Mexico where simply asking a person to leave my parking lot where they stage to sell drugs got the response of a gun in my face. I live in the country as it is, not as I would want to see it to be.
the hated state MA has one of lowest murder rates in the united states as well as one of the lowest deaths by firearm - but I will accept the claim that causation/Correlation is up for grabs.
Massachusetts also has the 2nd highest median income of the states. There does seem to be a correlation between poverty and murder rates. That’s not the whole story, of course. Maryland is the one state with a higher median income, yet it has almost 4x the murder rate as Massachusetts. (Let’s just take for granted that Boston is a nicer place to live than Baltimore.) And both states have restrictive gun laws, so while laws & regulations may be one factor, it’s certainly not the sole decisive cause that determines the rate of violent crime.
2 Likes
Then there is the cultural difference between New England and say the South West where I live, New Mexico has the second highest crime rates in the country much due to incomes and the rugged individualism that connotes the “Frontier”.
I would say that these differences are a better gauge. But the simple claim that more guns = more safety, is not sound in light of the murder rates compared to USA and other industrialized nations such as Germany, France UK and Japan.
I agree that it’s not that simple. Probably a factor, but not the most significant factor.
However, I do think that the means of self-defense cannot be omitted from the equation. The old saying that “an armed society is a polite society” has not always been true, but anecdotally I find that bullies are less inclined to push people around when they know there may be consequences. Similar to Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, some people will only behave if they believe there will be punishment. In France, for example, a mugger may not be worried that a tourist walking down the alley is carrying a firearm, but they are probably concerned that a team of heavily armed police is right around the corner. (French punchlines aside, the police in Paris are no joke.) In the U.S., some of the highest crime rates are found in places where the police/judicial system are ineffective, and the people are unable or unwilling to defend themselves.
There are other important factors, too, but we probably don’t have the space to list them all.
3 Likes
Did those countries have a correlation where they removed guns and crime went down?
2 Likes
Chicken/egg problem. Owning a gun for other than hunting/target never has been part of the cultural DNA of these countries, they have never had large numbers of guns to begin with, so there is no natural economic experiment to be had there.
We do have good data from Australia that after hand guns were banned suicides went down. That data is backed by the data from MA that shows that along with a low murder rate, its death by gun is very low compared to other states.
“Death by gun” shouldn’t really be the standard. If you are beaten or stabbed to death instead, dead is dead.
And both sides of the scale must also be considered. How many lawful defensive gun uses that stop or prevent crime does MA have?
Would you mind sharing your data/source on the Australian suicide rates?
If you look at male suicides post 1996 (this is the year that Australia’s restrictive gun laws were passed)their suicides went from 23.7 to 16 per 100,000 within ten years.
I look at males in that males typically use guns whereas females use poison in their suicide attempts. A gun to the head is more efficient in killing then poisoning. A conclusion that I draw from this data is that more females are surviving their attempts whereas males are not. When the easy access to handguns was withdrawn, the successful attempts went down.
Aren’t 1997, and 1998, and 1999, all higher than 1996?
1 Like