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Way too easy to get guns in America. Americans think weapons protect them, but in fact, weapons kill them.
A good politician would vote a law to make it very difficult to get weapons, despite the fact that a majority of americans are pro-gun (sometimes politicians have to take their responsibilities and do what is best to do for the greater good, even if that means they will get very unpopular)
I agree that fewer guns would make us slightly safer, but if you really think that's the reason for the murder rate, then you have your head in the sand.
I was born and raised near philly, my pops is from Manhattan, my moms is from Puerto Rico, yet I got a southern accent. What???????????? I must be all confused.
^
Good answer. After all, this country was founded on the principle of silencing criticism and expelling dissenters. Oh wait...
Who's silencing or expelling? I simply made the suggestion that if here is so bad and there is so good...2+2.
The post I responded to lauded other countries fundementals and suggested we abandon ours and take up theirs. I think our founders would call that treason.
The justice department and locking more people up obviously isn't the problem. The USA has 25% of the world's prison population, and we lock people up at rates about 7-13 times the rates of other industrialized countries. Per capita we lock up 13 times the rate of Japan, and 9 times the rates of many countries in Europe.
The incarceration rates in the USA were very stable for most of the 20th century, but then started shooting up in the 1970's and have continued rising every since. They've now grown about 350% for men in the past 30 years. The incarceration rate for black men in the USA is 4,347 per 100,000. Most other industrialized countries have rates of around 50-200/100,000 for their population.
You'd think we'd have violent crime rates that are 1/10th of those places if that's how it works, but instead our murder rates are around 5 times higher than most other civilized countries.
We have an extreme culture of violence in this country that you don't see in most other industrialized countries. In many areas of the world it would be ok to show a naked person on TV, but you aren't allowed to show graphic violence. Here in the USA we can't show any nudity on TV, but it's fine to show murders, attacks and violence during prime time TV. It's very backwards.
As we build up a tolerance to violence on TV, the makers of the programs have gotten more and more graphic and violence to still deliver that "wow" factor and pull in our attention.
Studies show that by the time an average child finishes grade school, he or she will have seen 100,000 violent acts and around 8,000 murders. By the time an average student finishes high school, they will have seen over 40,000 murders on TV. A few decades ago people would have been horrified to even think that.
Throw video games in, and the levels of violence exposed to little kids is amazing. Games like Grand Theft Auto have initially been banned in many countries because people were shocked at the levels of graphic violence and sexual conduct being advertised as basically a game for young people. Here in the USA people went crazy for it and spent over $300,000,000 on GTA3 alone.
Last edited by Chicago60614; 04-08-2012 at 11:12 AM..
Perhaps I'm going to get a lot of disagreement, but I would say that much of the excess violent crime in the United States compared with, say, Europe, has to do with 3 major factors: 1) poorer urban planning (broadly interpreted) in the US, 2) the ready availability of guns 3) lack of any reasonable redress of economic inequalities.
First, as a caveat, the causes of violent crime are complex, varied, and dynamic, and the attempt to boil violent crime down to a single factor is, for the most part, a naive and futile exercise. That being said, some factors are more important than others.
The most important factor is the style of urban planning and urban change that has occurred in the United States. For those who think that police or law enforcement are responsible for preventing violent crime, you're wrong. There are far too few police officers out there to watch the streets all the time. Crime is kept low by the constant vigilance of civilians, watching the streets and mutually looking out for one another. When this implicit urban social contract breaks down, there is increased incentive to commit crime (or rather diminished disincentive to do so).
Between the 1950s and the 1990s, many american cities underwent drastic shifts in population distribution, density, and composition. As white families fled the inner cities for suburbs, reached by increasingly strong automobile networks, the tax base and infrastructure of big cities fell into disrepair. Urban decay spread rapidly, with no means of ameliorating it. Overtly racist and classist policies worked to reorient city money away from neighborhoods struggling with unemployment, depopulation, crime, and decreased housing quality.
The dense center city neighborhoods of the early 20th century were replaced by decentralized suburbs designed for auto-commuting in and out of the city. As the circumstances for inner city residents worsened with substantial economic restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s, illegal activities became more common and were often the only choice for many low-income urban residents. This further worsened the character of inner city neighborhoods, instilling fear in many, and discouraging individuals from walking the streets and providing mutual protection to other residents. As big cities became emptier, they also became more dangerous.
Suburbanization in the United States was far more extensive and far more harmful than the similar trend in Europe. Only in the 1990s and 2000s has the trend been reversed at all in the United States, and in some cities (Baltimore, St. Louis) there's been almost no change at all. In Europe, the situation has been much better, partly because urban planning there has been much more density-oriented and has not privileged auto travel.
As a converse, crime rates did not begin to decline in the US until the 1990s, when many cities began to reverse trends in urban decay and experienced revitalization of inner-city neighborhoods.
Most violent crime occurs in cities. Check out crime statistics by large city, and you'll see an amazing relationship between the amount of urban decay and the violent crime rate. The large city (500,000+) with the lowest violent crime rate? San Jose, which has little to no urban decay. The highest? Detroit, which has experienced EXTREME depopulation and urban decay.
The main reason is the court system and assigned sentences are a joke.
But we already lock people up at 7 times the rate of other industrialized countries. 25% of the inmate population and less than 5% of the world's population.
the theory that not offering resistance to violence reduces violence, is false and does not work. resistance will reduce violence not encourage it.
violence does not start with hitting stabbing and shooting
its begins with shouting cursing insulting throwing things all of which are allowed.
stop criminalizing self defense
stop allowing abusive behavior
and violence will decrease.
to the abusive and criminal, lack of resistance is perceived as approval and consent.
at the heart of the anti gun movement is the belief that disarming victims will reduce crime.
gun bans in england and austrialia have proven beyond any doubt that passive behavior encourages violence.
Last edited by Huckleberry3911948; 04-10-2012 at 07:57 AM..
because as a people we hate punishment, just hate it. our best shot is confinement, but time out does not work. so we got lots of crime. crime does not start in the street it starts in the home and then overflows.
Eh? The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. US prisons are relatively harsh compared to European ones and use things like solitary confinement more frequently.
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