"Gun policies... are downstream from culture"
April 26, 2023 5:55 AM Subscribe
Gun Violence Is Actually Worse in Red States. It’s Not Even Close. Colin Woodard, author of American Nations (summary), runs Nationhood Lab which is "focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the federation’s stability."
A longer paper on the same subject states:
A longer paper on the same subject states:
But what’s less well appreciated is how much the incidence of deadly violence generally – and gun violence in particular – varies by region. It’s as if we live in separate countries, some of which have gun violence profiles that look like Canada’s, others that resemble the Philippines, Panama, or Peru. And the reasons for this go back centuries, part and parcel of dominant cultural heritages laid down by the rival colonial projects that spread across our continent in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Reducing levels of deadly violence in the U.S. won’t be easy, but understanding the nature of the problem is an essential first step.I found these maps to be very eye-opening as well.
Scholars have long recognized regional differences in deadly violence generally and gun violence in particular. But our conventional way of defining regions—dividing the country along state boundaries into a Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest and Northwest—masks the cultural lines along which attitudes toward violence fall. These lines don’t respect state boundaries, but they are the tectonic plates of our history, the dividing lines upon which our culture wars have been fought for a quarter millennium now. To understand violence or practically any other divisive issue – be it Covid-19 vaccinations or political contests or attitudes about the threats to the republic — you need to understand the historical settlement patterns that created our rival regional cultures and the distinct ideologies and values they carried with them.
[...]
So, to summarize our findings by “nation”:
The Deep South is the most dangerous large region in almost every respect, except if you are African-American, where it becomes one of the safer regions on a per capita basis.
Greater Appalachia is one of the most dangerous places if you are white, especially for gun homicides, but the overall homicide rate ranks it in the middle of the other large regions.
The Far West is very safe, relative to the rest of the U.S., in terms of gun homicide risk, but very dangerous in regards to suicide. No other region shows this degree of polarization.
The Midlands is generally in the middle of the pack, except for gun homicides where it is one of the most dangerous places to be Black and one of the safer places to be white. . . .
El Norte generally ranks in the middle of the other regions in terms of gun violence, too. It’s fairly safe in terms of gun homicides (3.6 per 100,000) and suicides (6 per 100,000), where it ties with Left Coast as the third safest of the non-enclave regions. The white homicide rate is relatively high at 2 per 100,000, making it the third most dangerous of the large nations (after Deep South and Greater Appalachia) in this respect. It’s one of the safer nations for black city dwellers.
Tidewater historically had very high indices of violence, but today it’s one of the safer regional cultures. In American Nations (2011) I noted that the region’s distinctiveness had been vanishing in recent decades due to it being a small area (westward spread was effectively blocked in the 18th century by Greater Appalachia’s numerous settlers) that hosts much of the federal government (in the adjacent District of Columbia and around Hampton Roads, site of the world’s largest naval base); trillions of dollars in federal spending has created a world where literally millions of outsiders can and have been living economic, social, and cultural lives without reference to the legacy Tidewater culture around them. . . .
Yankeedom is also one of the safest regions, with the second lowest per capita deaths of any of the large region from suicide overall and for suicide and homicide for city-dwellers, whites, and white city-dwellers. The exception: it’s one of the most dangerous places to be a Black city-dweller in regards to homicides. There is a more than 33-fold difference between the African-American and white homicide rate in the “big city” urban counties (NCHS Categories 1 and 2), 0.8 and 26.6 per 100,000. (For comparison, there is “only” a 7-to-1 difference between these populations in Deep Southern big city counties, where the figures are 2.4 and 19.) This, as with the Midlands, appears to be driven by a handful of metro areas: Chicago (shared with the Midlands), Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Buffalo.
Left Coast, as with so many things, displays a similar pattern as Yankeedom. It’s the second safest large region in terms of overall homicide and third for overall suicide. It also has a wide white/Black disparity among city dwellers – 1.3 to 24.5 – due almost entirely to the high African-American homicide risk in the Bay Area.
New Netherland is far and away the safest of the large regions, and often safer even than Hawaii, despite being the most densely populated part of our continent. This applies to gun homicides and suicides and for both white and Black Americans. . . .
In regards to the four smaller “enclave” regions, First Nation is far and away the most risky place in terms of deadly gun violence with a calculated smoothed rate of 27.6 per 100,000. This figure is overwhelmingly driven by a catastrophic gun suicide rate of 22.3 per 100,000, a rate more than double that of its nearest rival (Greater Appalachia at 9.2) and quadruple that of Yankeedom. . . . the suicide crisis within these Native Alaskan communities – which bears heaviest on very young men – is well documented.
New France . . . is far and away the most dangerous part of the U.S. for gun homicides, with a smoothed rate roughly triple that of the northeastern fifth and western half of the country. Gun suicides are also high and Black and white big city homicide rates are the highest in the country (a tie with Deep South in the case of white deaths.) . . .
Hawaii, the U.S. portion of Greater Polynesia, is by many metrics even safer than New Netherland. This is a state with strong gun control policies which most people travel to via security-screened transport: commercial aircraft and ships. Southern Florida, the northern reaches of the Spanish Caribbean colonial space, is roughly in the middle in most categories.
Honestly, I've started suspecting all the people who yammer on about how New York City is besieged by crime are just assuming it's still like the 80s and early 90s. Their parents or grandparents told them stuff about Son of Sam and Bernie Goetz and they think it's still like that here.
I have lived in my Brooklyn neighborhood for just under 20 years now; these days it's considered a pretty posh place to live. But I still regularly have people tell me that their mom or their uncle or their grandma used to refer to one of the main streets, Myrtle Avenue, as "Murder Avenue". Even a guy I know who grew up in the area and moved upstate still mentions that now and again.
Things have changed, y'all. These days the biggest crimes we see here are corporate ones.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:37 AM on April 26, 2023 [40 favorites]
I have lived in my Brooklyn neighborhood for just under 20 years now; these days it's considered a pretty posh place to live. But I still regularly have people tell me that their mom or their uncle or their grandma used to refer to one of the main streets, Myrtle Avenue, as "Murder Avenue". Even a guy I know who grew up in the area and moved upstate still mentions that now and again.
Things have changed, y'all. These days the biggest crimes we see here are corporate ones.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:37 AM on April 26, 2023 [40 favorites]
What's with these weird "nation" names? We already have names for different geographical sections of the United States?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 6:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [14 favorites]
What's with these weird "nation" names? We already have names for different geographical sections of the United States?
I believe this is just a thesis or frame-work the author is using:
From the book linked up above:
I believe this is just a thesis or frame-work the author is using:
From the book linked up above:
“According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of any hotly contested election in our history.”posted by Fizz at 6:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
"Gun Violence Is Actually Worse in Red States" followed by an analysis that largely ignores state lines to support its thesis.
Which is weird because you get the same result at the state level rather than carving up the country by settlement patterns from 200 years ago:
posted by jedicus at 6:51 AM on April 26, 2023 [37 favorites]
Which is weird because you get the same result at the state level rather than carving up the country by settlement patterns from 200 years ago:
The murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump has exceeded the murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden in every year from 2000 to 2020.The Two-Decade Red State Murder Problem
Over this 21-year span, this Red State murder gap has steadily widened from a low of 9% more per capita red state murders in 2003 and 2004 to 44% more per capita red state murders in 2019, before settling back to 43% in 2020.
...
Even when murders in the largest cities in red states are removed, overall murder rates in Trump-voting states were 12% higher than Biden-voting states across this 21-year period and were higher in 18 of the 21 years observed.
posted by jedicus at 6:51 AM on April 26, 2023 [37 favorites]
Weird to see "actually" in the headline.
At least id didn't say that gun violence is "literally" worse.
I personally find the region names to be unpleasantly hokey and I don't buy their backstory on how the regional identities stem from early settlement. But regardless of that aspect, that gun violence has regional patterns (especially at the state level, and when looking at areas within states) is very clear and worth studying.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:55 AM on April 26, 2023 [19 favorites]
At least id didn't say that gun violence is "literally" worse.
I personally find the region names to be unpleasantly hokey and I don't buy their backstory on how the regional identities stem from early settlement. But regardless of that aspect, that gun violence has regional patterns (especially at the state level, and when looking at areas within states) is very clear and worth studying.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:55 AM on April 26, 2023 [19 favorites]
Yeah, there's no need to shackle the data to a framework that's going to be off-putting to almost everyone who reads it. Just going by state lines makes the same case.
posted by goatdog at 6:56 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by goatdog at 6:56 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
So if New York was super violent in the 1980's and 1990's does this chart with an influx of migrants from gun violence cultural areas? I have vague memories (as someone not from the USA) that the New York Black Ghettos of the 1960 and 70's were considered extremely violent, but they were also populated by a huge wave of economic migrants from the south. Could some of the crime rates be linked with incoming populations from high gun violence areas?
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:56 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:56 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos, we get that in Boston as well. "Where are you going - that's in the Combat zone!" There's a *Ritz Carlton* there now!
But that map - it's crazypants. New England would like to have a chat about Yankeeland extending to North Dakota. As would North Dakota, I suspect. If they're making the case that these are cohorts, I guess I understand, but it's still very strange and not exactly informative.
posted by scolbath at 7:09 AM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
But that map - it's crazypants. New England would like to have a chat about Yankeeland extending to North Dakota. As would North Dakota, I suspect. If they're making the case that these are cohorts, I guess I understand, but it's still very strange and not exactly informative.
posted by scolbath at 7:09 AM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
Yeah, this oddball demarcation is a huge weakness to the overall thesis and probably dooms it from being taken seriously.
I think, though, if you look just at the concentrations, the main takeaway (as it is with pretty much all gun violence stats) is that it, of course, clusters in the large urban (not suburban) centers, which, unfortunately, tend to lean to the blue side of the spectrum.
There is a republican running a very high-profile campaign for mayor here in Indianapolis, and, judging from his tv spots, Indy is literally burning to the ground, with armed thugs rioting in the streets and shooting everyone in sight. It's a typical conservative attack against the current democratic mayor, of course. This study, regardless of the claim implied by the author (that gun violence is higher in conservative regions), shows Indy to be a high-concentration spot for gun violence, and will be used, no doubt, to bolster the republican's claim.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:11 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think, though, if you look just at the concentrations, the main takeaway (as it is with pretty much all gun violence stats) is that it, of course, clusters in the large urban (not suburban) centers, which, unfortunately, tend to lean to the blue side of the spectrum.
There is a republican running a very high-profile campaign for mayor here in Indianapolis, and, judging from his tv spots, Indy is literally burning to the ground, with armed thugs rioting in the streets and shooting everyone in sight. It's a typical conservative attack against the current democratic mayor, of course. This study, regardless of the claim implied by the author (that gun violence is higher in conservative regions), shows Indy to be a high-concentration spot for gun violence, and will be used, no doubt, to bolster the republican's claim.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:11 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
They forgot the stats for Flyover Country, Jesusland, and Hollyweird.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:13 AM on April 26, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 7:13 AM on April 26, 2023 [16 favorites]
Weird to see "actually" in the headline.
“Crime” just means visible homelessness to most media types, who will go along with any number of Republican narratives on it. Hence the feigned surprise.
posted by Artw at 7:14 AM on April 26, 2023 [17 favorites]
“Crime” just means visible homelessness to most media types, who will go along with any number of Republican narratives on it. Hence the feigned surprise.
posted by Artw at 7:14 AM on April 26, 2023 [17 favorites]
One thing I like about this presentation is that it shows the long shadow of slavery. A culture based on naked violence and fear (or "honour", as they'll have it) has produced a culture with a lot of violence and fear.
posted by clawsoon at 7:28 AM on April 26, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:28 AM on April 26, 2023 [19 favorites]
Colin Woodard's American Nations previously.
Lotta skepticism back in 2013, too, though I enjoyed the book. Some parts of the analysis are stronger than others, which seems like how things usually work, but I think it's more useful to engage within the framework than it is to nitpick its construction.
posted by box at 7:35 AM on April 26, 2023 [12 favorites]
Lotta skepticism back in 2013, too, though I enjoyed the book. Some parts of the analysis are stronger than others, which seems like how things usually work, but I think it's more useful to engage within the framework than it is to nitpick its construction.
posted by box at 7:35 AM on April 26, 2023 [12 favorites]
Honestly, I've started suspecting all the people who yammer on about how New York City is besieged by crime are just assuming it's still like the 80s and early 90s. Their parents or grandparents told them stuff about Son of Sam and Bernie Goetz and they think it's still like that here.
It's not even that sophisticated, it's just that the city is a completely foreign landscape to them which has people of color in it, and they think of those people as subhuman. You will never convince them that it's not a hellscape of violence and robbery because they literally think a diverse city full of people who mostly respect each other and mind their own business is impossible. Show them a picture of a black kid in a hoodie and they see "crime."
posted by anhedonic at 7:39 AM on April 26, 2023 [42 favorites]
It's not even that sophisticated, it's just that the city is a completely foreign landscape to them which has people of color in it, and they think of those people as subhuman. You will never convince them that it's not a hellscape of violence and robbery because they literally think a diverse city full of people who mostly respect each other and mind their own business is impossible. Show them a picture of a black kid in a hoodie and they see "crime."
posted by anhedonic at 7:39 AM on April 26, 2023 [42 favorites]
Vox offers one simple trick to reduce gun deaths: proper gun storage
posted by Jacen at 7:44 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 7:44 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
“Crime” just means visible homelessness to most media types,
visible unhoused population OR more than three (3) teens in one place.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
visible unhoused population OR more than three (3) teens in one place.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
So if New York was super violent in the 1980's and 1990's does this chart with an influx of migrants from gun violence cultural areas? I have vague memories (as someone not from the USA) that the New York Black Ghettos of the 1960 and 70's were considered extremely violent, but they were also populated by a huge wave of economic migrants from the south.
Crime in New York City at the time was driven by a lot of things - but the biggest culprit was more likely the prevalence of crack cocaine. General overall poverty (brought about by Reaganomics, in part) likely had a hand as well (meaning, it wasn't just the people who'd only just moved to NYC who had it hard).
Relatedly - these days the crime rate has lessened dramatically, and former mayor Rudy Giuliani would be all too happy to claim all the credit for that, by introducing much more aggressive policing; but overall gentrification, a decline in lead paint use, much more aggressive and punitive nationwide drug laws, and even increased access to abortion have also been proposed as contributing to the decline in crime.
Also, what you're remembering about the 60s and 70s being a bad era in New York may have been in part due to a generally bad era for the city overall; in 1975 the city was on the brink of bankruptcy, and even reached out to the federal government for a bailout on some loans that were about to come due. The president, Gerald Ford, refused, and ultimately the city's teachers offered to turn over a good portion of their pension funds to save the city. (There was a famous NYC Newspaper headline reporting the incident - "Ford To NYC: 'Drop Dead'!"). The next mayor, Ed Koch, is credited with saving the city by starting a lot of policies which ultimately pulled the city out of bankruptcy.
And what you were hearing might have been coming from a biased source anyway. In the 1970s, members of New York's own police force handed out flyers in New York's airports warning tourists about horrific levels of crime, in an effort to push back against some threatened layoffs of police officers (to offset the debt I spoke about above).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
Crime in New York City at the time was driven by a lot of things - but the biggest culprit was more likely the prevalence of crack cocaine. General overall poverty (brought about by Reaganomics, in part) likely had a hand as well (meaning, it wasn't just the people who'd only just moved to NYC who had it hard).
Relatedly - these days the crime rate has lessened dramatically, and former mayor Rudy Giuliani would be all too happy to claim all the credit for that, by introducing much more aggressive policing; but overall gentrification, a decline in lead paint use, much more aggressive and punitive nationwide drug laws, and even increased access to abortion have also been proposed as contributing to the decline in crime.
Also, what you're remembering about the 60s and 70s being a bad era in New York may have been in part due to a generally bad era for the city overall; in 1975 the city was on the brink of bankruptcy, and even reached out to the federal government for a bailout on some loans that were about to come due. The president, Gerald Ford, refused, and ultimately the city's teachers offered to turn over a good portion of their pension funds to save the city. (There was a famous NYC Newspaper headline reporting the incident - "Ford To NYC: 'Drop Dead'!"). The next mayor, Ed Koch, is credited with saving the city by starting a lot of policies which ultimately pulled the city out of bankruptcy.
And what you were hearing might have been coming from a biased source anyway. In the 1970s, members of New York's own police force handed out flyers in New York's airports warning tourists about horrific levels of crime, in an effort to push back against some threatened layoffs of police officers (to offset the debt I spoke about above).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
I think, though, if you look just at the concentrations, the main takeaway (as it is with pretty much all gun violence stats) is that it, of course, clusters in the large urban (not suburban) centers
If you look at this by-county map, a lot of big cities fall within areas that are dark blue (which in the map marks areas of low gun deaths).
posted by joannemerriam at 8:09 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
If you look at this by-county map, a lot of big cities fall within areas that are dark blue (which in the map marks areas of low gun deaths).
posted by joannemerriam at 8:09 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
The disparity between homicides and suicides by region is fascinating, I think.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:10 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 8:10 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
Ignoring the boundaries of his regions, I know that since moving from Texas to Minnesota, I have had fewer phone alerts of mass shootings, fewer incursions of people demanding to open-carry their guns into my working spaces, and a 100% decrease in incidents like showing up at the Costco to find a grown-ass man weeping in fury because Costco told him he could not open carry his katana into the store. That one was, um, unusual even for Austin, but it was also incredibly illustrative in a Texan urban metropolis in one of the bluest pieces of the red state.
I have to think that the increasing unpredictability and aggression, to say nothing of the stochastic terrorism, endorsed by the right wing is a part of that. The NRA is hugely responsible for this; so is Alex Jones, and so is QAnon. I cannot express enough how impressive the drop in the day to day threat of violence, and reminders of the potential for the threat of violence, has been for me since moving north. There is so much in the way of calls for political violence on the right. It would not surprise me if violence was higher among people who self-identified as conservative as well as in regions with higher levels of conservative voting. The actual ideology promotes terrorist violence.
posted by sciatrix at 8:12 AM on April 26, 2023 [49 favorites]
I have to think that the increasing unpredictability and aggression, to say nothing of the stochastic terrorism, endorsed by the right wing is a part of that. The NRA is hugely responsible for this; so is Alex Jones, and so is QAnon. I cannot express enough how impressive the drop in the day to day threat of violence, and reminders of the potential for the threat of violence, has been for me since moving north. There is so much in the way of calls for political violence on the right. It would not surprise me if violence was higher among people who self-identified as conservative as well as in regions with higher levels of conservative voting. The actual ideology promotes terrorist violence.
posted by sciatrix at 8:12 AM on April 26, 2023 [49 favorites]
Incidentally - I think the discussion about whether city or county or state X falls under region Y is a bit of a derail, because: look, most government-recognized demarcations of geographic location are kind of arbitrary, and if you think about it, something based on the original settlement patterns may be more telling for this particular purpose than does how state or county lines were drawn.
The disparity between homicides and suicides by region is fascinating, I think.
Agreed!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
The disparity between homicides and suicides by region is fascinating, I think.
Agreed!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
Vox offers one simple trick to reduce gun deaths: proper gun storage
I seriously did not know we had guns in my house growing up at all. I was shocked to find out we had them when my mom was giving them to her boyfriend-of-a-minute (don't ask, long story, short dating) and she was all, "Well, you knew he was from Montana!" and I was all, "Yeah, but he never went out shooting in California!"
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:20 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I seriously did not know we had guns in my house growing up at all. I was shocked to find out we had them when my mom was giving them to her boyfriend-of-a-minute (don't ask, long story, short dating) and she was all, "Well, you knew he was from Montana!" and I was all, "Yeah, but he never went out shooting in California!"
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:20 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
all the people who yammer on about how New York City is besieged by crime are just assuming it's still like the 80s and early 90s. Their parents or grandparents told them stuff about Son of Sam and Bernie Goetz and they think it's still like that here.
This is a motivated belief, entirely independent of and resistant to any contact with reality. Plenty of aiders and abettors to promote it, but generally (I think we can exempt the ninety-year-olds who've been living in a home for the last ten years and kids at or below college age who aren't very worldly) a belief in "American carnage" is indicia of being both dim and mean.
posted by praemunire at 8:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is a motivated belief, entirely independent of and resistant to any contact with reality. Plenty of aiders and abettors to promote it, but generally (I think we can exempt the ninety-year-olds who've been living in a home for the last ten years and kids at or below college age who aren't very worldly) a belief in "American carnage" is indicia of being both dim and mean.
posted by praemunire at 8:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
Also, what you're remembering about the 60s and 70s being a bad era in New York may have been in part due to a generally bad era for the city overall; in 1975 the city was on the brink of bankruptcy
My impression is that this was the result of too much freeway building, an early example of car-driven development being financially unsustainable in the long term. (Not to mention all the low income minority neighbourhoods bulldozed and divided to make car dependency possible, with a resulting breakdown in the kind of community webs that help keep crime low.) But I'm no expert on the financial history of New York City.
posted by clawsoon at 8:37 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
My impression is that this was the result of too much freeway building, an early example of car-driven development being financially unsustainable in the long term. (Not to mention all the low income minority neighbourhoods bulldozed and divided to make car dependency possible, with a resulting breakdown in the kind of community webs that help keep crime low.) But I'm no expert on the financial history of New York City.
posted by clawsoon at 8:37 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm currently on vacation in a different province and sitting in a room about 33 miles away from the American border, but threads like these are like it's a different planet being talked about. I've lived in Canada my entire life and have never, ever seen anyone but members of the military or "law enforcement" (lol, but that's a different thread) openly carrying a gun.
(Weirdly, my high school did still have a Rifle Club in the early '90s I was a member of for lack of anything better to do during my lunch hour, in which we fired .22 rifles at paper targets in a a dedicated shooting range.)
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:40 AM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
(Weirdly, my high school did still have a Rifle Club in the early '90s I was a member of for lack of anything better to do during my lunch hour, in which we fired .22 rifles at paper targets in a a dedicated shooting range.)
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:40 AM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
Crime in New York City at the time was driven by a lot of things - but the biggest culprit was more likely the prevalence of crack cocaine. General overall poverty (brought about by Reaganomics, in part) likely had a hand as well (meaning, it wasn't just the people who'd only just moved to NYC who had it hard).
The crack era was the worst era pretty much everywhere, but the “bad days” of violence in NYC did start in the late 60s, and ended in the late 90s.
More recently if anything it’s been remarkable in how few homicides it has compared to other major American cities, even with the bump up in 2020.
posted by atoxyl at 8:46 AM on April 26, 2023
The crack era was the worst era pretty much everywhere, but the “bad days” of violence in NYC did start in the late 60s, and ended in the late 90s.
More recently if anything it’s been remarkable in how few homicides it has compared to other major American cities, even with the bump up in 2020.
posted by atoxyl at 8:46 AM on April 26, 2023
Living in the shadowlands between New Netherland and Yankeedom, I think, "is this some sort of joke?"
As for Vox’s simple solution, that is all nice and good. Except for one thing. People keep their guns where they can reach them for when the home invasion comes, or the terraists or whatever. Jim Jefferies nailed that whole thing here. At 3:00 or so, he asks us, well, you keepin’ your shootin ‘arn at the ready or locked in a safe?
The solution is very hard to achieve, even if it's simple.
We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. and so my digression has hit another digression.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 8:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
…fewer phone alerts of mass shootings, fewer incursions of people demanding to open-carry their guns into my working spaces, and a 100% decrease in incidents like showing up at the Costco to find a grown-ass man weeping in fury because Costco told him he could not open carry his katana into the store.Is this really happening? I guess the Hudson really is a moat.
As for Vox’s simple solution, that is all nice and good. Except for one thing. People keep their guns where they can reach them for when the home invasion comes, or the terraists or whatever. Jim Jefferies nailed that whole thing here. At 3:00 or so, he asks us, well, you keepin’ your shootin ‘arn at the ready or locked in a safe?
The solution is very hard to achieve, even if it's simple.
Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.which brings another Clausewitz aphorism to mind:
We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. and so my digression has hit another digression.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 8:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm currently on vacation in a different province and sitting in a room about 33 miles away from the American border, but threads like these are like it's a different planet being talked about. I've lived in Canada my entire life and have never, ever seen anyone but members of the military or "law enforcement" (lol, but that's a different thread) openly carrying a gun.
I've lived exclusively in "open carry" states (meaning you can walk around with your pistol displayed in its holster anywhere that is legal (i.e., not in federal buildings), no permit needed) for about the last twenty years. I've only seen a few people ever doing so in public -- it really isn't a common thing outside of specific situations.
But the contrast with Canada is always useful, because Canada (like a number of other countries) shows that it is perfectly possible to have high rates of firearms ownership combined with strict gun limitations and low homicide rates. It doesn't have to be a choice between anything-goes and total bans.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 AM on April 26, 2023 [24 favorites]
I've lived exclusively in "open carry" states (meaning you can walk around with your pistol displayed in its holster anywhere that is legal (i.e., not in federal buildings), no permit needed) for about the last twenty years. I've only seen a few people ever doing so in public -- it really isn't a common thing outside of specific situations.
But the contrast with Canada is always useful, because Canada (like a number of other countries) shows that it is perfectly possible to have high rates of firearms ownership combined with strict gun limitations and low homicide rates. It doesn't have to be a choice between anything-goes and total bans.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 AM on April 26, 2023 [24 favorites]
…this was the result of too much freeway building, an early example of car-driven development being financially unsustainable in the long term. (Not to mention all the low income minority neighbourhoods bulldozed and divided to make car dependency possible, with a resulting breakdown in the kind of community webs that help keep crime low.) But I'm no expert on the financial history of New York City.Or more to the point, suburbanization and the loss of urban manufacturing. Into the 1970s, there were still tons of people manufacturing things in the City. By 1985, not so much. Those cheap lofts in southern Manhattan had been factories. The Garment District wasn't where you bought clothes. YT actually has some ads, including this one from 1981.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 8:55 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
My impression is that this was the result of too much freeway building, an early example of car-driven development being financially unsustainable in the long term.
Yeah, that very likely was a factor as well. My ultimate point, to clarify, was that there was no one cause all on its own. (I know I pointed at crack as a big cause in the 80s; I wasn't as clear that it wasn't the only cause, apologies.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that very likely was a factor as well. My ultimate point, to clarify, was that there was no one cause all on its own. (I know I pointed at crack as a big cause in the 80s; I wasn't as clear that it wasn't the only cause, apologies.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've lived in Canada my entire life and have never, ever seen anyone but members of the military or "law enforcement" (lol, but that's a different thread) openly carrying a gun.
I mean...here's the thing, I live in the "crime ridden war-zone" known as Chicago, Illinois, and I also have never ever seen anyone other than members of the military or cops openly carrying a gun.
This is because I have lived in parts of the city that are historically white (though currently less so) and where economic investment has been reasonably steady for the last ehh 30 years. It is also because cities aren't monoliths, and also because shit, even the people who do shootings in my neighborhood (a nonzero number) don't do the same kinds of shootings you see elsewhere. They aren't trying to just terrify and murder everyone in a two-block radius out of general grievance; they are carrying out targeted violence.
There's a huge difference between living somewhere where a gang member might target another gang member, and living somewhere where some asshole gets mad about his sex life and murders an entire gym.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [32 favorites]
I mean...here's the thing, I live in the "crime ridden war-zone" known as Chicago, Illinois, and I also have never ever seen anyone other than members of the military or cops openly carrying a gun.
This is because I have lived in parts of the city that are historically white (though currently less so) and where economic investment has been reasonably steady for the last ehh 30 years. It is also because cities aren't monoliths, and also because shit, even the people who do shootings in my neighborhood (a nonzero number) don't do the same kinds of shootings you see elsewhere. They aren't trying to just terrify and murder everyone in a two-block radius out of general grievance; they are carrying out targeted violence.
There's a huge difference between living somewhere where a gang member might target another gang member, and living somewhere where some asshole gets mad about his sex life and murders an entire gym.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [32 favorites]
Maybe the people who declared war on everything from holidays to concepts need less propaganda and more therapy
posted by Jacen at 9:06 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 9:06 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
Whenever I see statistics drawn from 'regions' instead of states, I think the author may be implying the difference is caused by culture and background, instead of by state law. Unfortunately, also implying that law is irrelevant. A little suspicious then, that northern Mexico is coded as the same region as southwest US, but southeastern Canada is quite distinct from northeastern US.
posted by meowzilla at 9:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 9:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: it's more useful to engage within the framework than it is to nitpick its construction.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:20 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:20 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
meowzilla, it’s a while since I read the book but I remember it dealing with both those questions — I know it maps some of the regions across national borders and uses information from both sides. I’m pretty sure there are some states that include two settlement patterns with historical alternations in state politics that describe themselves accordingly— the dairy vs the cattle regions, eg.
posted by clew at 9:40 AM on April 26, 2023
posted by clew at 9:40 AM on April 26, 2023
My impression is that this was the result of too much freeway building, an early example of car-driven development being financially unsustainable in the long term. (Not to mention all the low income minority neighbourhoods bulldozed and divided to make car dependency possible, with a resulting breakdown in the kind of community webs that help keep crime low.) But I'm no expert on the financial history of New York City.
This is very much not true. There's a great book on this very subject: Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
This is very much not true. There's a great book on this very subject: Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:45 AM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
But that map - it's crazypants. New England would like to have a chat about Yankeeland extending to North Dakota.
The Puritan social mores that define New England have a lot in common with Scandinavian mores.
In particular the Jantelagen.
(There's a famous novel about Jante , a village in Denmark's Jutland peninsula, and the Jante laws are the implicit rules for getting along with your neighbors in Jante made explicit as a literary device.)
To a Danish friend I joked once that since New England was Puritan, and the Puritans were from East Anglia, which was where the Jutes landed in the 400's, that makes Massachusetts the New Jutland, which explains everything about the place. Including the haut cuisine.
posted by ocschwar at 9:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
The Puritan social mores that define New England have a lot in common with Scandinavian mores.
In particular the Jantelagen.
(There's a famous novel about Jante , a village in Denmark's Jutland peninsula, and the Jante laws are the implicit rules for getting along with your neighbors in Jante made explicit as a literary device.)
To a Danish friend I joked once that since New England was Puritan, and the Puritans were from East Anglia, which was where the Jutes landed in the 400's, that makes Massachusetts the New Jutland, which explains everything about the place. Including the haut cuisine.
posted by ocschwar at 9:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
But that map - it's crazypants. New England would like to have a chat about Yankeeland extending to North Dakota.
It's not that crazy....the original land grant for the Connecticut colony, for instance, stretched all the way west to the Mississippi, and there are parts of northern Ohio which were settled by people from Connecticut who moved there shortly after the Revolutionary War.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's not that crazy....the original land grant for the Connecticut colony, for instance, stretched all the way west to the Mississippi, and there are parts of northern Ohio which were settled by people from Connecticut who moved there shortly after the Revolutionary War.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Is this really happening? I guess the Hudson really is a moat.
I mean, that's my point: not in all regions. I'm not sure that this particular framework does a great job of explaining the felt threat of violence in central Texas specifically, because so much of that is less about general cultural baselines and more about the experience of living in a very convenient blue punching bag that sits front and center where the attention of a hostile red state government is frequently drawn to it, you feel me? My experience comes from living and working in an institution in the middle of that, one which is and was a hot-button target for open-carry advocates and infamously was the center of debate over "campus carry."
The incident with the dude weeping in the Pikachu hat at the Costco happened in 2017 right after Texas passed a law enabling open carry for knives of any length, which in turn passed the Texas Senate three weeks following a fatal stabbing on UT Austin campus a few blocks from where I was teaching; it was widely felt to be a slap in the face on campus. He was crying with fury because the Costco employees told him he could not bring the katana into a private building.
This kind of thing used to happen in my workplace and in my home city every couple of years. It does not happen so much up here. This is something I find comforting because after eight years of that I am very, very tired. That said, most of the people who actually live in Austin would also like it to stop happening.
posted by sciatrix at 10:00 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
I mean, that's my point: not in all regions. I'm not sure that this particular framework does a great job of explaining the felt threat of violence in central Texas specifically, because so much of that is less about general cultural baselines and more about the experience of living in a very convenient blue punching bag that sits front and center where the attention of a hostile red state government is frequently drawn to it, you feel me? My experience comes from living and working in an institution in the middle of that, one which is and was a hot-button target for open-carry advocates and infamously was the center of debate over "campus carry."
The incident with the dude weeping in the Pikachu hat at the Costco happened in 2017 right after Texas passed a law enabling open carry for knives of any length, which in turn passed the Texas Senate three weeks following a fatal stabbing on UT Austin campus a few blocks from where I was teaching; it was widely felt to be a slap in the face on campus. He was crying with fury because the Costco employees told him he could not bring the katana into a private building.
This kind of thing used to happen in my workplace and in my home city every couple of years. It does not happen so much up here. This is something I find comforting because after eight years of that I am very, very tired. That said, most of the people who actually live in Austin would also like it to stop happening.
posted by sciatrix at 10:00 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
all the people who yammer on about how New York City is besieged by crime are just assuming it's still like the 80s and early 90s.
My American friend's parents lived in NYC until recently. Now they exclusively watch fox news and believe earnestly that it and every other major Democrat-run city is perpetually on fire. People's perceptions, especially those of house-bound boomers, are probably largely conditioned by the media they consume.
posted by klanawa at 10:05 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
I mean...here's the thing, I live in the "crime ridden war-zone" known as Chicago, Illinois, and I also have never ever seen anyone other than members of the military or cops openly carrying a gun.
This is because I have lived in parts of the city that are historically white (though currently less so) and where economic investment has been reasonably steady for the last ehh 30 years...
That's mostly because open carry is not legal in Illinois, so anyone doing so is risking arrest. Versus in most of the rest of the country, where in a lot of states it is completely legit, from a legal if not social standpoint, to carry your gun on display in public. (It's worth taking a look at the maps on the Wikipedia page, to see just how prevalent those laws are these days.)
I flagged the difference between legal and social acceptability because it being legal doesn't make it socially welcome in a lot of settings. We were at brunch a little while back and a guy came in with his pistol on display, and although no one said anything, he got a lot of stink-eye and sure didn't make any new friends. You run into it now and then, but in my experience it is really, really rare in most settings.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is because I have lived in parts of the city that are historically white (though currently less so) and where economic investment has been reasonably steady for the last ehh 30 years...
That's mostly because open carry is not legal in Illinois, so anyone doing so is risking arrest. Versus in most of the rest of the country, where in a lot of states it is completely legit, from a legal if not social standpoint, to carry your gun on display in public. (It's worth taking a look at the maps on the Wikipedia page, to see just how prevalent those laws are these days.)
I flagged the difference between legal and social acceptability because it being legal doesn't make it socially welcome in a lot of settings. We were at brunch a little while back and a guy came in with his pistol on display, and although no one said anything, he got a lot of stink-eye and sure didn't make any new friends. You run into it now and then, but in my experience it is really, really rare in most settings.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:15 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I wish I could say I'd never seen someone carrying an assault rifle around. In North Carolina around the time of the TFG election, there was a whole thing about open carry and the evil crazies came out for it. Sub shops, grocery stores, parking lots - there were assholes with open guns everywhere. We put up a no weapons allowed sign in the bookstore where I worked and it was controversial. That was when I really started planning my escape from the South. By all accounts it has calmed down a bit since then but they're still out there. Even when I visit, I notice that you never know when you're going to go somewhere and lo, there's a white man with an assault rifle strapped to his back and a big chunky handgun in a holster at his side. It's unpleasant, to say the least.
I really thought Oregon would be different but there are still fully armed goons showing up at protests in my tiny rural area. Thankfully, they don't seem to need to show up everywhere else like that.
Also, I lived in NYC in the late 80s, specifically in a poor, crack ridden East Village neighborhood - yes, it was different then - and it was really not as bad then either as it was painted in the media.
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:22 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
I really thought Oregon would be different but there are still fully armed goons showing up at protests in my tiny rural area. Thankfully, they don't seem to need to show up everywhere else like that.
Also, I lived in NYC in the late 80s, specifically in a poor, crack ridden East Village neighborhood - yes, it was different then - and it was really not as bad then either as it was painted in the media.
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:22 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
(My statement was more meant to illustrate that one doesn't have to live outside the United States to find the experiences of many regions to be utterly bewildering and unfamiliar. One doesn't even have to live somewhere that is generally perceived as "safe." One can in fact live in a city that has become the entire nation's shorthand for "shithole" and still be like, the gun situation over there is absolutely bugshit.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:23 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:23 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's not just Fox News, though. Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul spent months smoking the fears of NY residents, and then NY Dems severely underperformed in the last election to the point that they are a pretty big reason the Dems lost the House.
And don't even get me started how feral Bay Area "moderate" Dems have gotten. They blamed Boudin for crime levels, chased him out, have become increasingly unhinged about unhoused people, and then tried to blame a techbro's murder on them.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:26 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
And don't even get me started how feral Bay Area "moderate" Dems have gotten. They blamed Boudin for crime levels, chased him out, have become increasingly unhinged about unhoused people, and then tried to blame a techbro's murder on them.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:26 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
Oregon is sadly super full of gun toting maniacs as soon as you get outside a city. The whole PNW is more purple than blue with rural areas being deep red and seething with barely repressed violence - something I didn’t know the full extent of until 2016 and saw some extremely disturbing signage.
posted by Artw at 10:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
If you look at this by-county map, a lot of big cities fall within areas that are dark blue
True, but not all of them. Baltimore for example, is politically a dark blue dot surrounded by mostly red counties, yet from this map the Baltimore area (the map has blocked out Baltimore, but shows Baltimore County) has the most gun deaths. Similarly, New Orleans, while not dramatically worse than much of the state in terms of gun violence, is not any better, despite being dark blue politically. And in Michigan, a state of politically blue cities and red countryside, it's Detroit/Detroit suburbs with more gun violence than the rest of the state. Similar to Michigan-Detroit, is the story of Pennsylvania-Philly, based on the map anyway. But yes, certainly the vilification of Chicago and NYC is not based in any sort of reality.
So yeah, I think the story is slightly more complicated than our currently political map - New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philly all share a deep history of radicalized violence and inequality paired with an entrenched conservative white elite, and that no doubt is part of what we see in these maps.
posted by coffeecat at 10:36 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
True, but not all of them. Baltimore for example, is politically a dark blue dot surrounded by mostly red counties, yet from this map the Baltimore area (the map has blocked out Baltimore, but shows Baltimore County) has the most gun deaths. Similarly, New Orleans, while not dramatically worse than much of the state in terms of gun violence, is not any better, despite being dark blue politically. And in Michigan, a state of politically blue cities and red countryside, it's Detroit/Detroit suburbs with more gun violence than the rest of the state. Similar to Michigan-Detroit, is the story of Pennsylvania-Philly, based on the map anyway. But yes, certainly the vilification of Chicago and NYC is not based in any sort of reality.
So yeah, I think the story is slightly more complicated than our currently political map - New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philly all share a deep history of radicalized violence and inequality paired with an entrenched conservative white elite, and that no doubt is part of what we see in these maps.
posted by coffeecat at 10:36 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also, I lived in NYC in the late 80s, specifically in a poor, crack ridden East Village neighborhood - yes, it was different then - and it was really not as bad then either as it was painted in the media.
Are these subjective impressions - “it was out of control”/“it really wasn’t that bad” - really very informative in either direction? Impacts are unevenly distributed, that’s the whole thing. In the worst years of the late 80s to early 90s, more than 5x as many people were murdered annually in NYC as in the 2010s. That seems objectively much worse in the past, and objectively much better in the present, even though there are people whose personal risk probably barely changed in that interval.
posted by atoxyl at 10:39 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
Are these subjective impressions - “it was out of control”/“it really wasn’t that bad” - really very informative in either direction? Impacts are unevenly distributed, that’s the whole thing. In the worst years of the late 80s to early 90s, more than 5x as many people were murdered annually in NYC as in the 2010s. That seems objectively much worse in the past, and objectively much better in the present, even though there are people whose personal risk probably barely changed in that interval.
posted by atoxyl at 10:39 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
That's why the detail pulled out in the post is so interesting - that, for example, it's much more dangerous to be Black in Boston, even if the per-capita rate is lower than in the Deep South.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:40 AM on April 26, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 10:40 AM on April 26, 2023 [10 favorites]
So if New York was super violent in the 1980's and 1990's does this chart with an influx of migrants from gun violence cultural areas? I have vague memories (as someone not from the USA) that the New York Black Ghettos of the 1960 and 70's were considered extremely violent, but they were also populated by a huge wave of economic migrants from the south. Could some of the crime rates be linked with incoming populations from high gun violence areas?
Fox Butterfield addressed this question to some extent in his 1996 book All God’s Children; a good interview about it can be found here. To very briefly summarize, he looks at the case of Willie Bosket, often described as one of the most violent criminals in New York and the impetus for the law in that state allowing juveniles to be tried as adults for certain crimes. Butterfield looks at the Bosket family’s roots in South Carolina and Georgia (right where I grew up and still live, so I can say his depictions ring true) and how they were brutalized through centuries of slavery and Jim Crow laws, overlaid on the Scots-Irish tradition of honor that evolved to make even the most trivial insult a matter of life and death. (This was in large part due to the slavery culture, which could not afford to tolerate any dissent and subsequently turned the southern US into a de facto military dictatorship in the antebellum years. They even had their own service academies, VMI and The Citadel, formed in response to slave rebellions by Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, respectively.) The violence and oppression required to maintain slavery and Jim Crow continues to take its toll on this country, and may well lead to its demise.
posted by TedW at 11:24 AM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
Fox Butterfield addressed this question to some extent in his 1996 book All God’s Children; a good interview about it can be found here. To very briefly summarize, he looks at the case of Willie Bosket, often described as one of the most violent criminals in New York and the impetus for the law in that state allowing juveniles to be tried as adults for certain crimes. Butterfield looks at the Bosket family’s roots in South Carolina and Georgia (right where I grew up and still live, so I can say his depictions ring true) and how they were brutalized through centuries of slavery and Jim Crow laws, overlaid on the Scots-Irish tradition of honor that evolved to make even the most trivial insult a matter of life and death. (This was in large part due to the slavery culture, which could not afford to tolerate any dissent and subsequently turned the southern US into a de facto military dictatorship in the antebellum years. They even had their own service academies, VMI and The Citadel, formed in response to slave rebellions by Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, respectively.) The violence and oppression required to maintain slavery and Jim Crow continues to take its toll on this country, and may well lead to its demise.
posted by TedW at 11:24 AM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
Goes along nicely with the study that found that people in former slave-owning states were more likely to agree with the statement "carrying a gun makes you safer."
posted by subdee at 11:51 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by subdee at 11:51 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The crack era was the worst era pretty much everywhere, but the “bad days” of violence in NYC did start in the late 60s, and ended in the late 90s.
More recently if anything it’s been remarkable in how few homicides it has compared to other major American cities, even with the bump up in 2020.
We have to look back to suburbanization after WW2, and post-desegregation "white flight", to see where this all began.
Then came the start of deindustrialization. We commonly think of that as a crisis of the Rust Belt, but before it hit those states in the '80s and '90s, it hit urban communities of color in the '60s and '70s.
This left many Black communities reeling. The crack epidemic was more a symptom of economically depressed communities than the cause of them... just like the more recent opioid epidemic.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:01 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
More recently if anything it’s been remarkable in how few homicides it has compared to other major American cities, even with the bump up in 2020.
We have to look back to suburbanization after WW2, and post-desegregation "white flight", to see where this all began.
Then came the start of deindustrialization. We commonly think of that as a crisis of the Rust Belt, but before it hit those states in the '80s and '90s, it hit urban communities of color in the '60s and '70s.
This left many Black communities reeling. The crack epidemic was more a symptom of economically depressed communities than the cause of them... just like the more recent opioid epidemic.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:01 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
For everyone saying that liberal cities aren't actually violent, you're mostly right, but with at least one big exception. My own neighboring city of Portland has seen a massive spike in homicides over the last few years, along with a huge increase in thefts and other crime. While NYC has remained among the least violent cities per Capita, Portland's homicide rates more than doubled in just a couple of years.
I'm not sure if there's a single obvious cause for the increase, but I will point out that Portland has a fraction of the police presence per Capita of cities like NYC and LA. Portland's police genuinely seem understaffed and unable to keep up with the crime wave that's been happening, and criminals are getting more and more brazen. Most people on here aren't fans of the police, and I'm not either, but there is evidence showing that increases in police per Capita are associated with reductions in crime.
https://katu.com/amp/news/local/city-of-portland-sees-dramatic-increase-of-homicides-according-to-new-report-crime-police-shooting-gun-violence
posted by ThisIsAThrowaway at 12:23 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure if there's a single obvious cause for the increase, but I will point out that Portland has a fraction of the police presence per Capita of cities like NYC and LA. Portland's police genuinely seem understaffed and unable to keep up with the crime wave that's been happening, and criminals are getting more and more brazen. Most people on here aren't fans of the police, and I'm not either, but there is evidence showing that increases in police per Capita are associated with reductions in crime.
https://katu.com/amp/news/local/city-of-portland-sees-dramatic-increase-of-homicides-according-to-new-report-crime-police-shooting-gun-violence
posted by ThisIsAThrowaway at 12:23 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
From Dying of Whiteness author (interview):
Carrying a gun in public has been coded as a white privilege. Advertisers have literally used words like “restoring your manly privilege” as a way of selling assault weapons to white men. In colonial America, landowners could carry guns, and they bestowed that right on to poor whites in order to quell uprisings from “Negroes” and Indians.posted by spamandkimchi at 12:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
...
The majority of America’s gun death victims are white men, and most of them die from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. In all, gun suicide claims the lives of 25,000 Americans each year.
2021 article discussing impacts of covid and the pandemic "Murders Rose Last Year. Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods Were Hit Hardest."
Despite a statewide stay-at-home order, Los Angeles recorded 332 killings in 2020, a precipitous jump — 95 more lives lost to murder than the year before, according to the city’s crime data. Almost all of the increase in homicides took place in Los Angeles’ Black or Hispanic neighborhoods.posted by spamandkimchi at 1:01 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
...
As COVID-19 raged through Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native communities, the devastation went beyond the disproportionate death toll, experts said. Lost jobs or wages have been concentrated in communities of color when businesses shut down. Schools, recreation centers and after-school programs have been shuttered in neighborhoods that need them most. Mentoring, counseling, prison and jail reentry programs and conflict mediation programs have scaled back, gone remote, or spent precious bandwidth filling other gaps like handing out PPE or passing out food.
Carrying a gun in public has been coded as a white privilege. Advertisers have literally used words like “restoring your manly privilege” as a way of selling assault weapons to white men.
I grant we're now getting a little far afield of the original topic of this thread, but there's an interesting footnote to this: in the late 1960s, the Black Panthers started encouraging other African Americans in California to start carrying guns for their own protection. They staged a demonstration on the steps of the California Statehouse, everyone armed with a gun, urging that "The time has come for black people to arm themselves!"
Shortly thereafter, then-governor Ronald Reagan proposed a state bill prohibiting open carry - and the NRA supported that bill, as well as several other gun control bills.
White privilege indeed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:17 PM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
I grant we're now getting a little far afield of the original topic of this thread, but there's an interesting footnote to this: in the late 1960s, the Black Panthers started encouraging other African Americans in California to start carrying guns for their own protection. They staged a demonstration on the steps of the California Statehouse, everyone armed with a gun, urging that "The time has come for black people to arm themselves!"
Shortly thereafter, then-governor Ronald Reagan proposed a state bill prohibiting open carry - and the NRA supported that bill, as well as several other gun control bills.
White privilege indeed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:17 PM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
I've lived in Canada my entire life and have never, ever seen anyone but members of the military or "law enforcement" (lol, but that's a different thread) openly carrying a gun.
It is straight up get arrested and lose your guns illegal to carry, open or otherwise, a firearm with a barrel less than 18". And while it it theoretically legal to carry a sheathed long gun you have to have a lawful purpose - protection from people doesn't meet that standard - lest you be charged with brandishing. It is also specifically illegal to carry a firearm at or on your way to/from a meeting.
posted by Mitheral at 1:28 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
It is straight up get arrested and lose your guns illegal to carry, open or otherwise, a firearm with a barrel less than 18". And while it it theoretically legal to carry a sheathed long gun you have to have a lawful purpose - protection from people doesn't meet that standard - lest you be charged with brandishing. It is also specifically illegal to carry a firearm at or on your way to/from a meeting.
posted by Mitheral at 1:28 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
But that map - it's crazypants. New England would like to have a chat about Yankeeland extending to North Dakota
As someone sadly living out their golden years in western North Dakota, I'd like to take the soapbox for a minute. As pointed out above, the Scandinavian mores (and some Germanic as well) did dominate in this state for a long time. It was pretty close to Yankeedom. "Moderation in all things" was long a hallmark. But that has eroded, especially in the western part of the state which the map notes is NOT in the blue. Several things contributed to this state of affairs: the asshole ratio jumped considerably with the oil boom, the dominance of right wing media stoking the hate machinery, the threat of a way of life going away with small towns shrinking and the smart segment of the youth getting the hell out of the area, the energy industry corrupting state and local government, a general cowboy/western attitude creeping in from eastern MT/WY/SD, agriculture getting fucked by the markets and climate change (though local weather people don't dare say those two words). A miasma of anger/fear has swept over all red states and it has come to full flower here.
The eastern part of the state is just a little more like Minnesota. Not quite enough for my taste having lived in both states but at least the cities like Fargo and GF seem more civilized (and in some pockets vote blue). The state legislature has entirely lost its mind and even our lame duck governor is frightened of his base. I look over at the wave of legislation passed in MN this year and pine for sanity. They'll likely legalize weed this session, for crying out loud. Of course, rural MN has more than its share of rabid mouth-breathers but because of the massive population of the metro, the state senate turned just blue enough to keep the state sane. And yeah, having lived in the Twin Cities and visiting it often, I don't see the open carry bullshit I see every fucking day out here in the wild, wild west.
If everything works out in 2024 we'll move from this place. If we do succeed in escaping the gravity well we're in, I'll mourn what this area used to be and grieve for what it has become. And I will never, never come back.
posted by Ber at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
As someone sadly living out their golden years in western North Dakota, I'd like to take the soapbox for a minute. As pointed out above, the Scandinavian mores (and some Germanic as well) did dominate in this state for a long time. It was pretty close to Yankeedom. "Moderation in all things" was long a hallmark. But that has eroded, especially in the western part of the state which the map notes is NOT in the blue. Several things contributed to this state of affairs: the asshole ratio jumped considerably with the oil boom, the dominance of right wing media stoking the hate machinery, the threat of a way of life going away with small towns shrinking and the smart segment of the youth getting the hell out of the area, the energy industry corrupting state and local government, a general cowboy/western attitude creeping in from eastern MT/WY/SD, agriculture getting fucked by the markets and climate change (though local weather people don't dare say those two words). A miasma of anger/fear has swept over all red states and it has come to full flower here.
The eastern part of the state is just a little more like Minnesota. Not quite enough for my taste having lived in both states but at least the cities like Fargo and GF seem more civilized (and in some pockets vote blue). The state legislature has entirely lost its mind and even our lame duck governor is frightened of his base. I look over at the wave of legislation passed in MN this year and pine for sanity. They'll likely legalize weed this session, for crying out loud. Of course, rural MN has more than its share of rabid mouth-breathers but because of the massive population of the metro, the state senate turned just blue enough to keep the state sane. And yeah, having lived in the Twin Cities and visiting it often, I don't see the open carry bullshit I see every fucking day out here in the wild, wild west.
If everything works out in 2024 we'll move from this place. If we do succeed in escaping the gravity well we're in, I'll mourn what this area used to be and grieve for what it has become. And I will never, never come back.
posted by Ber at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2023 [13 favorites]
Another reflection of slavery that seems relevant today: It's a system where if you humiliate and degrade someone, and then successfully intimidate them into not responding, that gives you legitimacy. It means you're supposed to be in charge of them.
posted by clawsoon at 1:44 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:44 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
It is also specifically illegal to carry a firearm at or on your way to/from a meeting.
That is delightfully specific. I once had to sit in on a meeting where the two dudes negotiating a piece of real estate -- I am not at all kidding -- started the meeting by each pulling out and placing their revolvers on the table with maximum posturing. That Canadian law would have been a great improvement.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
That is delightfully specific. I once had to sit in on a meeting where the two dudes negotiating a piece of real estate -- I am not at all kidding -- started the meeting by each pulling out and placing their revolvers on the table with maximum posturing. That Canadian law would have been a great improvement.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oregon is sadly super full of gun toting maniacs as soon as you get outside a city. The whole PNW is more purple than blue with rural areas being deep red and seething with barely repressed violence - something I didn’t know the full extent of until 2016 and saw some extremely disturbing signage.
I was on a motorcycle ride a few years ago and rode past a house in Forks, WA with the traitorous confederate coward banner flying on the flagpole outside. Friggin Forks.
posted by maxwelton at 1:59 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was on a motorcycle ride a few years ago and rode past a house in Forks, WA with the traitorous confederate coward banner flying on the flagpole outside. Friggin Forks.
posted by maxwelton at 1:59 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thinking back to the 80s and 90s, I think the main reason I didn't find the East Village scary was that I was comparing it to Baltimore, where I lived before and after my New York years. Baltimore was genuinely terrifying at that time: there was just a level of casual violence and crime that I didn't see in New York. That ties in with the central thesis of this article; it's a different region. And, as someone who has lived up and down the east coast from South Carolina to Massachusetts, I have no trouble believing that former slave states, like Maryland, are more violent than non slave states like New York. The South doesn't have a monopoly on racism, far from it, but there's so much trauma and poverty and violence.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:03 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:03 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
“The majority of America’s gun death victims are white men” (from that 2019 Dying of Whiteness interview) is technically true, but rather misleading. According to the CDC, there were 23.2 firearm deaths per 100,000 Black Americans that year, 14.1 among Native Americans, but only 12.1 among non-Hispanic whites (and 6.6 among Hispanic Americans).
In other words, the only reason most gun death victims are white is that most of the population is white.
This just like noting that California had the second-highest number of gun deaths in the country: Again, true, but only because it has more people than other states. In actual fact, California had the seventh-lowest rate of firearm deaths in 2019.
(However, it is true that white men in the US have a much higher rate of suicide with firearms, which does support the author’s overall thesis.)
posted by mbrubeck at 2:59 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
In other words, the only reason most gun death victims are white is that most of the population is white.
This just like noting that California had the second-highest number of gun deaths in the country: Again, true, but only because it has more people than other states. In actual fact, California had the seventh-lowest rate of firearm deaths in 2019.
(However, it is true that white men in the US have a much higher rate of suicide with firearms, which does support the author’s overall thesis.)
posted by mbrubeck at 2:59 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was on a motorcycle ride a few years ago and rode past a house in Forks, WA with the traitorous confederate coward banner flying on the flagpole outside. Friggin Forks.
Probably not really news to people who know American politics in general but I’ve seen ‘em in Maine. Strictly an expression of deep connection to Southern heritage, I’m sure.
posted by atoxyl at 3:12 PM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Probably not really news to people who know American politics in general but I’ve seen ‘em in Maine. Strictly an expression of deep connection to Southern heritage, I’m sure.
posted by atoxyl at 3:12 PM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thanks for the post, OP! (As an aside, please note that while “mouth breathers” may look stupid that does not mean we are. I agree with the other points made but no need to insult those of us who did not choose to breathe oddly and yet, here we are. I invite MeFites to consider using less specific insults in the future: jerks, thoughtless fools, witless wonders, brainless louts, etc. This particular mouth breather thanks you.)
posted by Bella Donna at 12:10 AM on April 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 12:10 AM on April 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
But the contrast with Canada is always useful, because Canada (like a number of other countries) shows that it is perfectly possible to have high rates of firearms ownership combined with strict gun limitations and low homicide rates. It doesn't have to be a choice between anything-goes and total bans.
I guess what rate is considered "high" depends on your perspective, but as a city-dwelling Canadian, I know exactly one person who has a gun. When I lived in farm country, I'd guess that most of my neighbours owned one or more guns but I never ever saw any of them out of the context of people actively hunting or returning from a hunting trip.
Only 22 percent of Canadian households own one or more guns, and nearly all of those are rural homes (often farmers protecting livestock) or hunters. 95% of that 22 percent report owning a long gun but only 12% had a handgun. "Self-protection" was a listed reason for under 5% of gun-owning Canadians - including those who use a firearm in their job - but for 39% of Americans.
So, Canadians who own guns typically have them for very different reasons (and in far lower quantities) than gun owners in the US (which was 48 percent of US households from the same survey, with 58 percent of those owning handguns). It's not a total ban, but it's not like we're doing all the same gun stuff but just with a more limited list of gun types either.
posted by randomnity at 8:41 AM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I guess what rate is considered "high" depends on your perspective, but as a city-dwelling Canadian, I know exactly one person who has a gun. When I lived in farm country, I'd guess that most of my neighbours owned one or more guns but I never ever saw any of them out of the context of people actively hunting or returning from a hunting trip.
Only 22 percent of Canadian households own one or more guns, and nearly all of those are rural homes (often farmers protecting livestock) or hunters. 95% of that 22 percent report owning a long gun but only 12% had a handgun. "Self-protection" was a listed reason for under 5% of gun-owning Canadians - including those who use a firearm in their job - but for 39% of Americans.
So, Canadians who own guns typically have them for very different reasons (and in far lower quantities) than gun owners in the US (which was 48 percent of US households from the same survey, with 58 percent of those owning handguns). It's not a total ban, but it's not like we're doing all the same gun stuff but just with a more limited list of gun types either.
posted by randomnity at 8:41 AM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
Why are Americans shooting strangers and neighbors? ‘It all goes back to fear’
A Post analysis, meanwhile, found that states with stand-your-ground laws had a 55 percent higher homicide-by-firearm rate in the past two years than the states that didn’t have these laws, which remove the duty to retreat from an attacker before responding with potentially deadly force.
posted by Artw at 1:43 PM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
A Post analysis, meanwhile, found that states with stand-your-ground laws had a 55 percent higher homicide-by-firearm rate in the past two years than the states that didn’t have these laws, which remove the duty to retreat from an attacker before responding with potentially deadly force.
posted by Artw at 1:43 PM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:13 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]