[barmar]

mike777, on 2015-May-05, 15:09, said:

"Gun violence in America has fallen dramatically over the past two decades, and the number of murders committed with a firearm is down too, though guns are still by far the leading type of crime weapon, according to a new report from the Justice Department..."

I think crime in general has dropped in the past few decades, and I think improvements in law enforcement procedures (e.g. ComStat) are considered partly to blame.

[barmar]

mike777, on 2015-May-05, 12:21, said:

Yes you make a very important point. Having a gun gives a very false illusion of safety. That is the key debate. If true that pretty much ends the discussion.

Indeed, one of the reasons the incident in the OP is "news" is that successfully using a gun to stop a crime is relatively rare.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2015-May-05, 12:15, said:

If I had accompanied here, I would not have had it with me. Who takes a gun to the symphony?

You never know when you might need to return fire with some libtard woodwind...

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2015-May-05, 15:24, said:

Indeed, one of the reasons the incident in the OP is "news" is that successfully using a gun to stop a crime is relatively rare.

Or at least reporting of same is relatively rare.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2015-May-05, 15:24, said:

Indeed, one of the reasons the incident in the OP is "news" is that successfully using a gun to stop a crime is relatively rare.

In this case, did it stop a crime or escalate it to a different level?

[mikeh]

barmar, on 2015-May-05, 15:21, said:

I think crime in general has dropped in the past few decades, and I think improvements in law enforcement procedures (e.g. ComStat) are considered partly to blame.

I read Freakonomics when it came out and the authors had an interesting, provocative take on the main cause of the drop in crime recorded in the US in, iirc, the 1990s, and continuing, I assume, to this date.

They said that a major cause was the decision in Roe v Wade.

Like it or not, the reality is that women in poor socio-economic circumstances are historically more likely than their wealthier counterparts to have children who grow up to act out in a criminal fashion. Fetal-alcohol syndrome is more prevalent with poorly educated people than with well-educated people. Poor diet, the same. Gang membership, the same. Economic opportunity...the inverse.

And so on.

Prior to Roe v Wade, wealthy women had better and safer access to abortion (or birth control, for that matter) than did the poor. Roe v Wade resulted in a significant increase in the abortion rates in the lower socio-economic classes, such that 16-20 years later there were literally hundreds of thousands fewer adolescent men from impoverished families than would otherwise have been the case, and while young males are not the only perpetrators of violent crime, they are the most frequent.

In addition, it is generally true that the propensity of males to commit acts of violence diminishes with age. The US is not alone. amongst western countries, in experiencing broad demographic changes. Some parts of society still have lots of kids, but amongst most Americans (and Canadians, Frenchmen, etc) it is rare to have as many as 4 children, let alone the 8-12 that were commonplace 80 years ago (tho back then it wasn't unusual for a few of the kids to die in infancy).

I very much doubt that the crime rates have dropped primarily, if at all, because of improved policing.

[blackshoe]

mikeh, on 2015-May-05, 17:38, said:

They said that a major cause was the decision in Roe v Wade.

Interesting.

[kenberg]

mikeh, on 2015-May-05, 17:38, said:

I read Freakonomics when it came out and the authors had an interesting, provocative take on the main cause of the drop in crime recorded in the US in, iirc, the 1990s, and continuing, I assume, to this date.

They said that a major cause was the decision in Roe v Wade.

Like it or not, the reality is that women in poor socio-economic circumstances are historically more likely than their wealthier counterparts to have children who grow up to act out in a criminal fashion. Fetal-alcohol syndrome is more prevalent with poorly educated people than with well-educated people. Poor diet, the same. Gang membership, the same. Economic opportunity...the inverse.

And so on.

Prior to Roe v Wade, wealthy women had better and safer access to abortion (or birth control, for that matter) than did the poor. Roe v Wade resulted in a significant increase in the abortion rates in the lower socio-economic classes, such that 16-20 years later there were literally hundreds of thousands fewer adolescent men from impoverished families than would otherwise have been the case, and while young males are not the only perpetrators of violent crime, they are the most frequent.

In addition, it is generally true that the propensity of males to commit acts of violence diminishes with age. The US is not alone. amongst western countries, in experiencing broad demographic changes. Some parts of society still have lots of kids, but amongst most Americans (and Canadians, Frenchmen, etc) it is rare to have as many as 4 children, let alone the 8-12 that were commonplace 80 years ago (tho back then it wasn't unusual for a few of the kids to die in infancy).

I very much doubt that the crime rates have dropped primarily, if at all, because of improved policing.

Without delving deeply into it, I have always been wary of Freakonomics. My first thought on reading here about Roe v Wade and its effect on crime was "Rally? Has there been a reduction in the number of single mothers living in poverty since Roe v Wade?"
The Wikipedia has a long entry on the book and on this aspect of it.. Here is a part, admittedly only a part:

Quote

In November 2005, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economist Christopher Foote and his research assistant Christopher Goetz, published a working paper,^[11] in which they argued that the results in Donohue and Levitt's abortion and crime paper were due to statistical errors made by the authors: the omission of state-year interactions and the use of the total number of arrests instead of the arrest rate in explaining changes in the murder rate. When the corrections were made, Foote and Goetz argued that abortion actually increased violent crime instead of decreasing it and did not affect property crime. They even concluded that the majority of women who had abortions in the 1970s were middle class whites rather than low income minorities as Levitt stated; this was, they stated, because white middle class women had the financial means for an abortion. The Economist remarked on the news of the errors that "for someone of Mr Levitt's iconoclasm and ingenuity, technical ineptitude is a much graver charge than moral turpitude. To be politically incorrect is one thing; to be simply incorrect quite another."^[12] In January 2006, Donohue and Levitt published a response,^[13] in which they admitted the errors in their original paper but also pointed out Foote and Goetz's correction was flawed due to heavy attenuation bias. The authors argued that, after making necessary changes to fix the original errors, the corrected link between abortion and crime was now weaker but still statistically significant, contrary to Foote and Goetz's claims. Foote and Goetz, however, soon produced a rebuttal of their own and showed that even after analyzing the data using the methods that Levitt and Donohue recommend, the data does not show a positive correlation between abortion rates and crime rates. ^[14] They are quick to point out that this does not necessarily disprove Levitt's thesis, however, and emphasize that with data this messy and incomplete, it is in all likelihood not even possible to prove or disprove Donohue and Levitt's conclusion.

This excerpt touches a bit on what I give as my initial reaction. I'll phrase my question in a way that presumably could be answered: Count all mothers between the age of, say, 25 and 30 in 2014, count all single mothers in the same age group (whatever age group seems right, I don't care) living below some definition of poverty, say living below 1.5 times the official poverty line. Divide the latter by the former. Repeat this calculation for mothers in 1970. Which ratio is larger? I confess I do ot know, but my guess is that the 2014 number is larger. Yes, I am guessing. I don't know.

It seems to me that the problem of single mothers raising their children in poverty has gotten worse, not better. I can think of few things that I would rather be wrong about.

Added: Maybe compare 2010 with 1970 since these are census years. I'm not fussy as long as it is a good faith effort to get at the truth.

More added: Probably it is better to count kids rather than mothers.It's the kids who are at issue.

And another add: I see I referred to single mothers living in poverty and the stuff from Freak didn't. In the case of children having a tough time growing up, I do think that in poverty with one parent is tougher than in poverty with two parents, but I am ope to hearing about both.

[mike777]

I am just saying that there are more than 300 millions guns, more guns than people in the USA and there has been a drop in gun violence, gun deaths.

you can debate cause and effect.

I believe there were around 700,000 in prison in the early 70's, today over 2 million.

Milwaukee DA did a major effort to reduce convictions for low level drug issues. Crime rates went up, number of people in prison went down.

------------------

keep in mind there is the whole other issue of guns/weapons training and that is the issue of people not trusting governments
Look at Asia and Africa and around the world.

Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain were not tht long ago.
China and Russia are huge countries run by fascists.
-----

People forget there were concentration camps, active concentration camps in Central Europe in the 1990's, yes 1990's.

Guns/weapon training is not an issue just limited to the USA though there does seem to be a love affair with this issue, a passion more here than in most of the world.

[hrothgar]

FWIW, the most intriguing studies that I have seen on the declining crime rates have focused on environment lead contamination.

http://www.motherjon...e-link-gasoline

[kenberg]

hrothgar, on 2015-May-05, 19:02, said:

FWIW, the most intriguing studies that I have seen on the declining crime rates have focused on environment lead contamination.

http://www.motherjon...e-link-gasoline

I guess i find this plausible. Part of me wants os say wonderful, we have found a way to help, while the other part of me stews over how we could ever have been so irresponsible.

But then I recall that when I was in college I had a job putting mercury coated seeds in a package with my bare hands. I know, this explains a lot.


Sipping coffee again. We hear fo famous people who started life with not much, but there are many, many more who started life with not much and managed to live happy productive lives although without fame. And of course there are those, quite a few, who go wrong. Why? I expect genetic material plays a role, and I have always thought dumb luck plays an underestimated role, but these things we cannot do much about. We can and should attempt to provide a physically healthy environment. Not a paradise, but no lead paint. Nutritious food available in the schools. That sort of thing.

People speak of subsidized lunches at schools as if it were some sort of controversial idea. IN the 1950s we could buy a hot lunch at high school for not much. The scale of money was different and anyway I don't recall the price, but it was a very good deal. This was for everyone, no need to prove you were poor. That can be embarrassing for some.

So feed them, keep them away from lead paint, provide at least the opportunity for a decent educational experience and that's a start.

Some things are complicated, some aren't. A woman I know was working with a school system in a poverty area. She insisted, absolutely insisted, that every child must have his/her own textbook. She got her way. This helped. As in duh.

[mikeh]

kenberg, on 2015-May-05, 18:28, said:

Without delving deeply into it, I have always been wary of Freakonomics. My first thought on reading here about Roe v Wade and its effect on crime was "Rally? Has there been a reduction in the number of single mothers living in poverty since Roe v Wade?"
The Wikipedia has a long entry on the book and on this aspect of it.. Here is a part, admittedly only a part:



This excerpt touches a bit on what I give as my initial reaction. I'll phrase my question in a way that presumably could be answered: Count all mothers between the age of, say, 25 and 30 in 2014, count all single mothers in the same age group (whatever age group seems right, I don't care) living below some definition of poverty, say living below 1.5 times the official poverty line. Divide the latter by the former. Repeat this calculation for mothers in 1970. Which ratio is larger? I confess I do ot know, but my guess is that the 2014 number is larger. Yes, I am guessing. I don't know.

It seems to me that the problem of single mothers raising their children in poverty has gotten worse, not better. I can think of few things that I would rather be wrong about.

Added: Maybe compare 2010 with 1970 since these are census years. I'm not fussy as long as it is a good faith effort to get at the truth.

More added: Probably it is better to count kids rather than mothers.It's the kids who are at issue.

And another add: I see I referred to single mothers living in poverty and the stuff from Freak didn't. In the case of children having a tough time growing up, I do think that in poverty with one parent is tougher than in poverty with two parents, but I am ope to hearing about both.

Thanks for this: I will rethink my ideas on this

[Winstonm]

IMO, while economic impacts are severe, it is the emotional and psychological impact on children of broken homes and missing/absent parents that does the most long term damage. In some cases, a single parent can be such a forceful figure that he or she can imprint good ideas into the child; often, though, the single parent is following in the footsteps of their single parent and have no internal structure they can teach to their children.

We end up raising generations of quite broken people, psychopaths, sociopaths, and near-sociopaths, generations of individuals psychologically incapable of fitting into society.

[kenberg]

mikeh, on 2015-May-06, 08:55, said:

Thanks for this: I will rethink my ideas on this

The more I think about it, the more I believe it would be difficult to say with any confidence what the effect of Roe v Wade was on family structure and the pass through effect on crime.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I am reading The girls who went away, subtitled The hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v Wade. by Ann Fesler. The author has an agenda, but so do many authors so as long as we take her examples with caution, they are of interest. Anyway, it got me thinking.

I am adopted and in childhood I knew another adoptee, and I have known a few since. It has never been a big deal with me, but the book has stimulated my interest.

As I graduated from high school, I there were some girls who got married right after graduation and gave birht quite soon afterward.

I knew children of divorced parents. The parents of a petty close friend were divorced, and we had a mother with two daughters living in the (very space limited) of our house after she left her abusive husband.


As near as I can remember, I did not know any example of a woman who, starting from the birth of her child, planned to raise that child on her own. The woman got married, or she perhaps had an illegal abortion (not to my knowledge but I imagine it happened) or she gave up the child for adoption. Planned single motherhood simply didn't exist in my environment.

The author makes a strong case for keeping mother and child together. As we look at the effects of single parenthood, I want to ask, how is that working out?

I don't really know who, statistically, decides to abort, who decides to keep and raise the child. I get the idea that giving birth with the intention of placing the child for adoption is not a frequent choice anymore.

It seems clear that society has gone through a massive change in this regard. Somehow we have to come to grips with it. .

I learned long ago that it is far more effective to work on my own failures rather than to try to run the life of someone else. So I am not casting stones. But it seems to me that we have a problem.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-May-06, 18:39, said:

The parents of a petty close friend were divorced

Is their pettiness a result of growing up in a broken home?

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2015-May-06, 18:39, said:

I learned long ago that it is far more effective to work on my own failures rather than to try to run the life of someone else.

If this one simple life lesson could be passed along and acted upon by everyone, the world, indeed, would be a better place.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2015-May-07, 09:54, said:

Is their pettiness a result of growing up in a broken home?

Ah yes, Freudian slip, no doubt.

I have been chatting with people about the book I mentioned. A woman today, on a walk, mentioned that when she was in the hospital in a shared room, soon to give birth, the nurse kept calling addressing her as Mrs [last name], She said "Oh don't be so formal, just call me [first name]" The nurse got in a little closer and mentioned that the young girl in the other bed was in the 9th grade class Brenda was teaching, so they kept up the formal pattern of speech.

Incidentally, the young girl kept the child, got a lot of help and support from her family, and all is well. There are times I think I just don't know nothin about how the world actually works.

I don't think I can be converted to think of ninth graders giving birth as a good thing, but I am glad if it is working for her and her child.