Police are set to prioritize the escalating juvenile gun culture on the Peninsula with programs such as a new gun buyback after the shooting deaths of four teenagers in Hampton and Newport News in as many months.Well then, no need to worry. Everything's under control, isn't it?
If that's a good enough solution for highly trained professional "Only Ones," that's good enough for me, and I take back what I said.
For a possible parallel, I look at drug laws. There's evidence from Kansas and Florida that a law enforcement focus on property and violent crimes reduces overall crime, while law enforcement focus on drug enforcement raises crime rates. Apparently the relationship between crime and drug addiction is more complex than believed: while some people may turn to crime to support a drug habit, others turn to drugs after getting new friends and a new source of income when they turn to crime. And not every single drug user turns to crime. So locking up criminals turns out to be the most efficient way of keeping a lid on crime.
ReplyDeleteIllicit Drugs and Crime, Benson and Rasmussen.
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of me questioning the use of focusing on guns. Some criminals use guns, but most gun owners are law abiding. It seems like the most efficient way of keeping a lid on gun crime would be to simply solve property and violent crimes. And you'll catch gun-using criminals incidental to the main mission.
So I question gun buybacks, and I also question Operation Exile and extended sentences.
Xavier led a short but troubled life. At 12, he was sent to juvenile detention for stealing a Jeep with a 14-year-old and going on a joy ride that ended with the death of a 33-year-old Hampton woman when the Jeep crashed into her home.
ReplyDeleteOh. look how I cry. The kid was 12 when he stole a car and KILLED A WOMAN. He was 14 WHEN HE WAS SHOT AND MURDERED. Where the hell you want to bet THAT happened?
Juvenile hall?
n Newport News, the dangers of young people with guns was illustrated in December when a 15-year-old boy shot a woman in the hand in Patrick Henry Mall's parking lot during the Christmas shopping season. He was sentenced to five years and 10 months behind bars.
Not even SIX YEARS for attempted murder!?!?!
I have to say, maybe Ayers WAS right trying to bomb judges' homes. These judges sure as hell seem to be the people who continue to let the animals roam wild.
This is the ultimate racism: believing that black youths "can't help being violent criminals."
ReplyDeleteOf course they can't, if it's all they see all day every day, and no one tells them about outside of the projects, and cousin so-and-so, a big neighborhood hood, goes away to prison for a couple of months for this, a year for that, and always comes back around, and IS WELCOMED.
Horse thieves used to be hanged; shoplifters used to be shamed, and robbers used to be gunned down in the act. Now it's live large, f--- the Man and his laws, go out in a blaze of glory and make a hero's story.
14-year-olds ready to kill and die, while their suburban counterparts are worried about acne and girls.
It's not the guns. Its the lack of consequences for ANYTHING.
Whoa. Four teenagers shot in TWO CITIES in FOUR MONTHS? That's an average week in Exile-land, the capital city, Richmond. Smaller in square miles, smaller in population. It must not be the guns. Maybe it's the concentration of authoritarian politicians, and the backlash against them.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, Hampton, Norfolk, Newport News: the entire Hampton Roads area is totally infested with military bases, sometimes more than one per interstate highway exit. They should oust those nasty guys and girls with guns, subtracting their disposable income from the tax base!
Unless they're hypocrites or something.
The police department, too. The false arrests are legendary down there.