About That Study Saying Red States Have More Violent Crime
When a new study comes around trying to claim that gun control works or regarding violent crime in general, I try to check it out. While I’m not a scientist, I like to think I can see flaws in methodology in many cases. And I have.
But, I miss stuff.
Contrary to how I present myself to my wife, I am, in fact, merely human.
So I appreciate it when folks elsewhere get what I miss. I kick myself sometimes for missing it, of course, but again, only human.
A great example of someone finding what I failed to notice comes to us from Washington Examiner columnist Zachary Faria.
The usual response is to blame that violence on the fact that those liberal cities are in Republican-run states. That is what Axios did on Monday, parroting a report from the “left-leaning” Center for American Progress Action Fund that, surprise, blamed Republicans for gun crime.
Both the report and Axios argue that “the findings refute Republican narratives that progressive policies stoke more crime in cities.” After all, the most violence was in cities in red states: St. Louis (Missouri), Birmingham (Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana), and Jackson (Mississippi). Oh, and throw Chicago in there, not because Illinois is run by Republicans but because “some blue-state cities, like Chicago, are bordered by red states with looser gun laws.”
…
But buried deeper in the article is this kicker: “Gun homicide rates were higher overall in blue cities — as defined by the mayor’s party affiliation — than in red ones.” In other words, this does not “refute” the correct analysis that “progressive policies stoke more crime in cities.” All it does is indicate that the violence is worse overall in red-state blue cities where Democrats adopt the same strategy of non-prosecution as they do in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Funny how that got left out of a lot of other articles, isn’t it?
Now, in fairness, I missed it. I was too busy looking at other aspects and didn’t even read this so I’ll take the hit on that one. Luckily, others picked it up.
And it’s important.
If we’re going to blame party affiliation for the issues, then maybe the fact that blue cities are where the violent crime is in red states should matter.
Normally, I’d chalk this up to correlation, not causation. After all, the fact that people who live in cities tend to vote blue and also tend to shoot each other more aren’t necessarily related.
But it is.
We’ve long documented the push by Democrats to undermine the criminal justice system by essentially installing revolving doors on jail cells, putting dangerous criminals back on the streets just hours after their arrest, if not sooner.
These dangerous individuals can then harm others, thus driving up the violent crime rate.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but causation should create a correlation, and the fact that much of the current problems started when district attorneys decided not to prosecute people for various crimes and others pushed for cashless bail isn’t a coincidence.
But since that didn’t advance the narrative, that was deemed unimportant.
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