Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias

This week: The Carnival of Blame

Welcome to the January 3rd edition of the Weekly Check on the Bias in media regarding gun control and Second Amendment issues. It seems as if the biggest story of the past few weeks involved municipalities and states and even nations attempting to blame everyone else for their crime statistics. The blame game.

Canada, home of restrictive handgun legislation, a two billion dollar firearms registry fiasco, and in some areas such as Toronto, a street gang culture run amok, has been trying to blame the U.S. (lack of) gun control laws for their crime woes.

Boston's Mayor Tom Menino has seen the death toll in his city rising as well even though Massachusetts also has incredibly strict gun control laws. He blames Vermont and New Hampshire for their "lax" gun laws. Last week I printed an editorial from the NH Union Leader that I think sums the blame game all up:

ONE MONTH after Boston Mayor Tom Menino blamed his city’s rise in gun-related crime on looser gun laws in northern New England, Toronto Mayor David Miller blamed Toronto’s, and Canada’s, recent spike in gun crime on looser American gun laws.

Welcome to The M&M Show, starring mayors Menino and Miller! Watch in wonder as they deftly blame outsiders for their cities’ crime problems! Sit in amazement as they ignore criminals and attempt to rid the streets of inanimate objects!

Like Menino, Miller didn’t bother to explain how the differential in gun laws, which has existed for years, all of a sudden caused Canadian shootings to rise. Did Canadian criminals just now figure out they could get guns more easily south of the border?

He did, however, spread the blame. If only the Canadian government had more social programs, low-income Canadians wouldn’t have to resort to crime to make ends meet.

Evidently, Miller has never read H.L. Mencken, who wisely observed, “The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”

One security expert at the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute called the mayor’s blaming of America “a cop out” and noted that the real problem is a rise in criminal gangs.

Imagine that. Criminals causing crime. But don’t tell the mayors. They’ll have to change their act. And then what would we do for entertainment?

I have harped here until I am blue in the face that most of the rising gun crime problem here, in Canada, and also in gun-free (that's sarcasm) England is the result of youthful street gangs involved in everything from drugs to prostitution to simple "turf wars". Until these cities and nations get serious about locking up criminals -- regardless of age -- they will suffer from crime. Some of it with illegally possessed firearms. From yesterday's USA Today:

The violence would be shocking anywhere, but it's especially so in Toronto, where Canadians pride themselves on their city's safety and civility. The number of gun-related homicides nearly doubled in the city last year.

The spike has prompted a debate in Canada over what is behind the unprecedented violence. Law enforcement officials and crime experts point to an alarming increase in gangs.

"The fact that street gangs are now emerging in our city is a huge problem for us," Toronto Police Chief William Blair said. "This whole culture of urban gangsterism has emerged over the last four to five years. ... There's no simple solution."

Police have identified 73 street gangs operating in Toronto, 25 of which are involved in organized crime, Blair told CBC Radio. Many of the groups are arming themselves and fighting for turf. Some of the shootings are young men attempting to emulate gang violence.

Blair has called for tougher sentencing laws and said police are frustrated that many of those arrested with weapons are soon back on the streets.

Some Canadian politicians are blaming the spike in violence on guns coming from the United States. "The system you have in place in the U.S. is causing violence to be exported to my city," Toronto Mayor David Miller said.

Blame is an easy thing. It lets politicians and other officials off the hook for their own lack of performance in office and wrongly assigns it to someone else. How much easier to blame the US or New Hampshire or Smith & Wesson than to actually go after the real problem: Criminals. Consider (another story I reported last week) the laughable situation of Jamaica blaming the US for their gun crime:

...But that notwithstanding, we believe that the United States, particularly in the case of a small, poor state like Jamaica, has not only a moral responsibility but a security interest in paying substantially greater attention to the [gun] problem and helping to solve it.

In Trench Town, Arnett Gardens, Olympic Gardens, Jacques Road, Spanish Town and many other inner-city communities across Jamaica, hundreds of young lives are snuffed out each year with guns manufactured in and obtained on the streets of the United States. This represents a wanton waste of human talent that could be beneficial to our country.

Many of these guns are in the hands of gangs which exist for the protection of narcotics for which Jamaica is a trans-shipment point to the United States from South America. US demand for drugs is, in part, Jamaica's pain.

I guess the writer hasn't looked at a world map lately. Last time I did, there was some water located between Jamaica and the US coastline. Notice that he also claims that Jamaica is only a way-stop for drugs into the US. Indeed, it's the druggies in the US, according to him, that have caused the rise of gangs in Jamaica!

Might I boldly point out something to officials in Canada and Jamaica? The US has not exported its criminals, unfortunately. If they have problems with criminal gangs in their respective nations, they are home grown. As with any economic activity, there is the law of supply and demand. They need to attack the demand side of the equation by enforcing the crime laws they already have or enacting much tougher ones with real and meaningful jail sentences that will rid their streets of the gangs. That will eliminate any supply problems because the law abiding won't be trying to buy illegal guns.

As for attacking the supply side, even if SOME of the firearms originated from the US, it is highly unlikely that a few cases of smuggling could possibly provide guns in the numbers necessary to arm all of these gang members. More likely, these criminals get their handguns the old fashioned way; they steal them from legitimate owners or buy/sell/trade them for drugs from each other.

Asking the US to scrap it's Second Amendment is ridiculous. If Canadian and Jamaican officials really think the problem of smuggled guns is fueling their gun crime then it is up to them to strengthen up their border security, not to require that the US re-write its gun control laws. Yet that's precisely what NYC Mayor Bloomberg wants to do:

On Sunday, as Mr. Bloomberg was sworn in for his second term, he invoked the names of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty as he announced a new, central focus of his administration - protecting New Yorkers from what he called "the scourge of illegal guns" by taking a message for tougher gun laws to "Albany, to Washington, and to every capital of every state that permits guns to flow freely across its border." He called it the city's "most urgent challenge."

The administration has yet to provide concrete details of its new approach, though it seems to involve asking other states to adopt and enforce New York-style laws requiring the registration and licensing of all handguns. But the ambiguity of the city's new gun agenda hasn't stopped Second Amendment proponents from beginning to fight back.

Remember last year when the NYC Council tried to pass legislation that would "regulate" and hold liable gun stores across the nation if a crime gun somehow originated from them? Now they want to blame all the other states in the country and force them to adopt NYC style gun control. NYC style gun control means that only the criminals have handguns and the law abiding are controlled by them.

So Mayor Bloomberg is using the blame game, too. Any gun crime in the city must be the fault of other states that allow citizens to defend themselves. Interestingly, most of those states have far lower per-capita crime rates than NYC. I wonder why that is...

In the above article there was a sage observation:

Jacob Rieper, the legislative director for the [NRA] rifle association's New York State affiliate, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said he expects Mr. Bloomberg will meet substantial national opposition.

"He just doesn't have the clout to carry this to other states. Other states outside of New York are getting rid of their gun control laws. New York City is the only one still trying to keep hope alive that criminals are going to pay attention to their laws," he said.

Mr. Rieper added that Mr. Bloomberg seems to be saying "the entire United States is wrong and we're right," and said that attitude would not endear him to lawmakers outside of New York.

Regarding the recent surge in the City's gun crime, New York Newsday, normally a rather loud voice calling for more gun control, provided a reality check:

Some say it's an aberration. Others say that more guns on the streets are the price the NYPD is paying for dismantling the controversial Street Crime Unit in the wake of the shooting death of Amadou Diallo. Still others say the changing nature of the drug trade -- with more business done inside buildings -- makes for inevitable indoor shootings despite street patrols.

One thing is clear, say experts. The attention paid to terrorism has had a tangible effect on nuts and bolts police work. On any given day, the NYPD has more than 1,000 cops devoted to fighting terrorism, doing everything from checking bags to sniffing out bombs. Also, large scheduled events such as the United Nations General Assembly, and unexpected events, such as the recent scare involving a potential subway bomber, take hundreds of cops -- and sometimes as many as several thousand -- away from their normal duties.

"With all the attention paid to terrorism, there's a lot less guys out there on patrol," said one source, a narcotics supervisor. "Never seeing a cop, or not seeing them as much, really makes these guys bold."

For officers in specialty units, it means taking time away from their normal duties, such as looking for those wanted on warrants and conducting drug investigations.

What NY Newsday is saying, in essence, is that the problem of late is lack of criminal control, not gun control. Hey, that's what the NRA, GOA, and all the rest of us law abiding citizens have been saying for years! Still, there was one sour note in the piece:

But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, said dismantling the Street Crimes Unit did not hurt the effort to get guns off the street. In fact, he said, gun arrests through the first two weeks of December had increased more than 9 percent and the number of guns seized had increased 5 percent, to 3,662 from 3,486.

Browne also pointed out that while any uptick in gun violence merits attention, the increase follows a record-low year for shootings since the NYPD instituted its current crime tracking method, Compstat, in 1993.

Still, Andrew Carmen, a criminologist and the author of "New York Murder Mystery," a study of murder in the city in the mid- to late 1990s, said the increase is alarming.

"If gun arrests are up and gun seizures are up -- and if shootings are up -- then it must mean that more people are carrying guns," Carmen said.

Not more people, Mr. Carmen, more criminals. There are more criminals walking around. And that actually supports the complaint by police that the "war on terrorism" and dismantling the Street Crimes Unit has indeed hurt the city and is directly responsible for the increase in gun crime.

Last Thursday I reported that (in a NJ Journal article no longer on line) even officials in New Jersey are playing the blame game:

Experts blame guns and gangs for this year's spike in homicides in Hudson County.

There have been 50 homicides in Hudson County this year, the highest total since 1989. Nearly half the homicides - 23 out of 50 - were shooting deaths, records show.

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio blamed "the availability and access to hand guns, especially semiautomatic pistols.

"There are just too many (guns) out there," he said.

New Jersey has relatively strict gun control laws, but criminals can drive to Pennsylvania and purchase several firearms with little scrutiny, he said.

Combine the availability of guns with an increase in the number of gang members and New Jersey's inner cities have become shooting galleries, said Michael Wagers, director of the Police Institute at Rutgers University.

[...]

Statewide, there are nearly 17,000 gang members and some 700 gangs in New Jersey, and about 17 percent of all reported homicides in New Jersey involve gang members, according to state officials.

So now it's Pennsylvania's fault. If the Keystone State would just disappear, those 17 thousand gang members would be reduced to snuffing each other with those old Monty Python "comfy cushions"...

If Canada, and Jamaica, and Boston, and NYC, and NJ really want to see their crime stats drop, start locking up criminals. Stop the plea bargains, get rid of soft judges, build more jails, and begin enforcing all the seemingly trillions of existing laws.

Amid the Festival of Finger-Pointing there is one sensible response to the problem:

Hoping to end years of contentious debate over how best to prosecute gun crimes, local and federal law enforcement officials have tentatively agreed to a broad new plan to lock up any violent felon who carries a firearm in Baltimore.

Significant prison time for the city's most dangerous gun-toting criminals is one component of a revived and expanded "Baltimore Exile" program. The collaborative effort, led by the U.S. attorney's office, aims to reduce violent crime, including the city's stubbornly high homicide rate.

All of the agencies involved are reviewing a working draft of the agreement and expect to approve it this month. An advance copy was provided to The Sun.

"Our program is not about just diverting cases from state to federal prosecution," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in an interview. "It is a unified and comprehensive strategy to employ existing and new federal, state and community resources to deter gun violence."

[...]

A state law passed in 2000 requires a minimum prison sentence of five years for certain gun crimes, but the city's conviction rate has been tempered by a local policy of no plea bargains on the charge.

Judges also dismiss some gun cases because of what they say is faulty policework.

At times, juries have looked skeptically on the process, acquitting defendants in cases in which a guilty finding is warranted, officials said. Even if the felon is convicted of a related charge -- such as violating probation or parole -- it is rare for the defendant to serve substantial new prison time.

"Right now it's perfectly clear that defendants are not intimated by lawful authority -- police, prosecutors and judges," said Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn, who is in charge of the criminal division. "They are frequently offered generous plea bargains, and they still scoff at the state's offer."

[...]

Part of the strategy will be for the U.S. attorney's office to send letters to state prosecutors about the defendants eligible for federal prosecution. That technique has been used but was dropped in recent years, officials said.

Prosecutors said the letters, which are also shown to the defense attorneys, should act as an incentive to get defendants to plead guilty and agree to stiff penalties in state court. If not, they could face swifter justice and harsher sentences in U.S. District Court.

For the defendants who balk, federal marshals will be stationed in state court to haul defendants immediately into federal court, according to the draft proposal. "We need to send a new message," Deputy State's Attorney Kimberly Morton said. "But we need to be selective and strategic about the cases we choose to send to federal court."

To help ensure that cases do not fall apart in federal court, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have agreed to investigate every state case that might be eligible for federal prosecution. Such cases are now investigated by federal agents only after they have been approved for federal prosecution, sometimes leading to the uncovering of problemsmuch later in the case.

State and federal prosecutors will train city police officers on proper evidence-gathering techniques to address criticism from judges, according to the draft proposal. Other components include a monthly meeting of law enforcement officials to target the city's most dangerous criminals and a public outreach effort outlining the penalties for gun crimes. The public campaign will also try to persuade judges and juries to convict gun violators and give them long prison sentences, its authors said.

Read the whole article from the Baltimore Sun (and I hope they'll excuse the long quote). Here a state and city are doing the RIGHT THING. They're going to put the blame, and the sentence directly on the criminals who commit gun crimes. Project Exile has worked elsewhere and if Baltimore and Maryland officials really follow through, it could send a clear message to all of these Lady Macbeth Mayors and other officials who refuse to confront the real cause of crime; the criminals.

I'll be back doing my NRA News radio gig on all of this later today on The Cam Edwards Show. Naturally you should listen to all of it. I'm generally on during the first hour (about 3:20 PM EST).

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted by Jeff Soyer at January 3, 2006 10:22 AM