Other than murder, violent crime is not up. Did you know that? Violent crime is a key midterm voting issue, but what does the data say?
Mona Charen
Tweeted on November 5, 2022
[Visit this link for more context and appropriate attribution for these comments:
- ‘Other than murder’ is the most hilarious caveat ever.
- Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
- Imagine being so f—ked up with TDS that not only do you sell out every policy you ever claimed to care about, but you actually write the sentence, ‘Other than murder, violent crime is not up.’ Other than murder? ‘Other than the iceberg & all the death, how was the Titanic trip?
- Murder is by far the most easily visible and free from reporting biases crime. If murder is up, other crimes are too…they’re probably just being reported at lower rates. Also…murder is KINDA A BIG DEAL!
- I can’t believe this still needs to be said but ‘crime is down except for murder’ is not a winning or persuasive argument.
- If you’re not dead or don’t know a family member who has been murdered, things are great!
My contribution:
No wonder she doesn’t see a problem with restricting access to guns. She doesn’t see a need for self-defense. After all, it is only murder.
And her double down response to the criticism was almost as good as the original:
All crime is bad. I’m against it. But it is also a fact that perceptions of crime and actual crime are often out of sync. That may be true now. I found the Pew data surprising. That’s why I posted.
My response to this is to go slack jawed and walk away. Someone that dense is in danger of becoming a neutron star.
If this had been a fictional movie or book the editors would have insisted it be rewritten. She would not be a believable character in a work of fiction.—Joe]
My sister informed me that the US economy is doing well when compared to European ones. Our inflation rate is much better too she said,
My sister is quite bright so I imagine it must be some type of defense mechanism to avoid dealing with reality. Like the reporter saying mostly peaceful protest with the fire raging behind him.
So sad.
> But it is also a fact that perceptions of crime and actual crime are often out of sync.
They will also gladly try to have it both ways. When violent crime was trending steadily downwards in the 2000s heading for 40-year lows the narrative being pushed based on the perception vs. reality disconnect was “we’re drowning in a wave of violent (gun) crime and therefore need to take guns away from everyone!”
If I were the editor of a fiction book these days, I would require the author to add something to the story to establish the speaker of this phrase has some motivation for their chicanery. Something like pervasive media partisanship, crushing ignorance, narcissistic self justification, and/or the need for performative lying in order maintain personal status and social positioning.
Fiction has the disadvantage that it has to make some kind of coherent sense. That’s why, in days gone by, editors would exclaim “Ms Rand, your antagonists are unbelievable parodies of the views and behaviors of your personal political rivals!” and bade the author to rewrite. Now, the editors must know that there is no statement so stupid that it can’t be used in support of an epistemically-closed authoritarian movement. Idiocy is not unbelievable any more. You just need more exposition to establish the motivation for the character to maintain their idiocy in the face of objective reality violently refusing to conform.
Sadly, that sort of badly written character is all too common in real life.
And as for crime being down… My wife was a police secretary for better than 20 years. She changed jurisdictions to a small town police department.
The mayor was bragging about it being one of the safest cities in the state.
It was because no one had done the UCR (Universal Crime Report, that goes to the FBI and state for crime statistics), reporting for 3 years.
Not after my wife got everything back on track. Turns out the town was just another drug-infested, immigrant magnet shithole after all.
Other than murder, crime is down indeed!
“Other than murder, violent crime is not up”
Isn’t that how it is in most communist countries?
During the Covid lockdowns you couldn’t get police to respond for lower level calls. Pretty sure they responded to all incidents of reported murder.
But, to get them to show up for anything else, and take action, was entirely different.
Given the new nature of policing and lack of enthusiasm for the profession, I think this will be the new norm.
This is it right here! I would add that there is more than a little “Ferguson Effect” as well.
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“But, to get them to show up for anything else, and take action…”
This problem started before the covid idiocy. We used to view the cops as sort of a soldier, expecting them to charge into dangerous situations and act bravely. Kiss that goodby. That is mostly not happening anymore, mainly due to the changes in society that have occurred as an effect of unlimited border crossing, and allowing socialists and communists to exist here.
The prior expectation if your house or business was invaded was for the cops to show up and enter the building and either cuff or shoot them RFN. What happens today is they show up without lights or siren, and wait for the miscreants to exit once they are finished with their activities. Much safer for the cops. However, if you had family inside, oh well…
BTW, you might consider a simple change to your kitchen that may make your family safer if your home is invaded, especially if it is a burglary team that has hit.
Designate a knife drawer or lock box that ALL knives are stored in when NOT IN USE. Turns out that burglars have a history of arming themselves with YOUR kitchen knives when they first break in. These get tossed when they exit the property. Their reasoning is that being armed in the commission of a crime is a higher charge, so they arrive, and leave, unarmed.
My neighbor found his knives in his garden after his house was hit. Fortunately they weren’t able to break down the door his teen daughter was hiding behind, but they tried. The cops arrived quietly, and were waiting for them on the surrounding properties, and still only caught two of the three gangsters, and they had to call for a dog to find the second one.
The cops are not your friends, they DON’T work for YOU, and if you call for them don’t expect them to solve your problem to your satisfaction. History now says that you may be safer if you don’t call, as the end result of them showing up may be worse than the trouble you wanted them to handle in the first place. We are not getting our country back. It’s gone.
Which is good! We get to build a new one without all the old problems.
We just have to learn some hard lessons about life and government first. Once we do. We can get to work on what really works!