Murder in May

 

 

"My heart goes out to the innocents who are stuck living in a city which looks like a shooting gallery..."

I knew it was bad, but I did not think it was that bad. The May stats are now in, and life in the larger cities last month was bad - sometimes very bad. What has happened? Our very fabric of society is becoming unraveled. Robbery, rape, violence, shootings, and death have all begun to spike up. Why? Is it not enough policing? Too much? No hope? And most importantly, is this the beginning of a long, hot, bloody summer?

Baltimore seems to be at ground zero for this developing mayhem. Last month there were more homicides in that city than has been seen in any month for the past 40 years. 43 people died. In just one month. In our country, which is not a war zone. Unbelievable.

The Wall Street Journal is calling this spike in crime "The Ferguson Effect". And some believe we have our national race baiters to blame (and we all know who they are). Rather than soothing things back to some kind of normal, instead they have demonized the entire policing process. It is the police who are the problem, not the thugs breaking the law. The result have been huge upticks in crime in cities such as Milwaukee (homicides up 180%), Atlanta (murders up 32%), St. Louis (murders up 25%),
Chicago (murders up 17%), and so on.

I have said this before. My heart goes out to many who are trapped in big cities. Many of these cities have had Democrats running them for years, sometimes many decades. All they have heard from their Mayors and city leaders are empty promises. The reality is simply this - with poverty and continued poverty comes the abandonment of hope. And once hope is lost, some people will resort to the ugliest, the most primitive part of their human nature.

This is a huge problem for America right now. I have no clue to what the fix might be. We have poured trillions into these cities since the War on Poverty started in the 1960's. All that money did nothing but make things worse. As much as I hate to say it, to make these cities halfway livable again and somewhat safe again, the police might have to be given more power and authority. I know that statement will rankle some of my Libertarian and Constitutionally minded friends. Yes, I am talking about bending the Fourth Amendment to help fix this.

I am talking about "broken window" policing. Stop and frisk. No more catch and release. Stronger and longer sentencing for crimes. All those very unpopular methods of getting back control. Can't fix the hopelessness part right now, but we can help stem the growth of crime. In some cities the fix might even be beyond the scope of the police force. Maybe the Guard needs to be called in. All I know is this - should this crime trend continue to go up, we will be close to anarchy in our larger cities.

Other than that, I have no answers. Except one that is. Maybe changing the color of cities might help. Like red instead of blue. We have found out blue does not work very well. Red might do something critical that blue has not been able to - restoring hope to the hopeless.