Maury Harris was a top economist in the U.S. When he retired, he went back to graduate school to study criminology. This is his first publication. (Full disclosure: He is the brother-in-law of my late younger sister).
An important excerpt:
The extremely low 2020 homicide levels in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany relative to the US undoubtedly reflect exceptionally high gun ownership in the US with 1.20 guns for every resident in 2019. In contrast, guns per resident were 0.35 in Canada, 0.20 in Germany and 0.06 in the United Kingdom. It gets worse. For 2020, the FBI reports that US firearm background checks—a proxy for legal domestic gun sales–jumped by 40% to a record 39.7 million.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Until we have a reckoning with the fact that the history of the interpretation of the second Amendment has been ignored, misapplied, perverted, and weaponized (pun intended), comparative statistics will have no impact in the U.S. And I doubt very much we’ll have that reckoning.
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The Blame for the Insane is the Stench on the Bench
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A little instruction on the historical context of that amendment would go a long way.
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A lot more instruction in English comprehension would necessary first.
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Why were the Massachusetts colonists stockpiling arms in Lexington and Concord? To arm citizens militias. Why was the second amendment written, because at that time, those founders had just come off that experience. One of the reasons why, improbably, the colonists won the Revolutionary War is that they were opposed by citizens on all sides. They couldn’t, for example, depend upon being supplied by loyalists in particular localities. Quite the opposite. So, they had to depend upon impossibly long supply chains. But those idiots who think that today they are emulating the colonists with their citizen militias and just freaking nuts. If they tried to overthrow the government, they would be utterly crushed by overwhelming power. Alas, it’s looking more and more as though we might actually see something like that play out. Much depends upon whether the rank and file in the U.S. military holds true to their oath to defend the Constitution. Three retired generals just wrote a stark and frightening warning about the possibility of such mutiny in support of a fascist takeover.
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The way it was taught us back in the day when we had still had History was the Colonials were suspicious of standing armies and thought they could get by with Just-In-Time Civilian Militias called up as needed. The whole rationale is absurd to the max now that we have a standing Army & Navy & Air Force & Space Farce …
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YES!
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“Back in the day when we still had History”
Before Education Deform made the bubble tests in ELA and Math the be-all and end-all of U.S. education and crowded everything else out.
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And the Space Farce. Yeah, that’s just what we need–the weaponization of space–if we want to ensure something very like an apocalypse.
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Alien Apocalypse … I saw that movie … what happens when corporations reign in space and your militias are made of blackwater bots …
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If ever there were an argument for a strengthened United Nations (and there has been ever since Kant wrote his visionary, foundational essay, “Perpetual Peace,” preventing the weaponization of space (not to mention climate change and nuclear containment) is it.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm
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Maybe a few summer sessions of EFL for SCOTUS …
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Bob,
It’s too late.
Doncha know, the Jews have already weaponized space with their lasers?
It’s very likely to lead to the yarmulkalypse
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Google can really be amazing/scary. Here’s my thoughts on the matter: https://dianeravitch.net/2017/10/02/the-perversion-of-the-second-amendment/
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Greg, in response to your excellent post:
We soon could face those consequences of having a standing army:
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/18/us-generals-issue-chilling-warning–civil-possible-if-another-insurrection-is-attempted_partner/
From 138 CE to 284 CE, there were thirty-two Roman emperors. Not a job people lasted long in. LOL. These weren’t killed and replaced by invading barbarians. They were killed by their own guard or military insurrectionists.
In this day of widespread insanity, I hasten to add that I am NOT making an argument that we should not have a standing army, though via a strengthened United Nations, the people of the world should be following a policy, as suggested by Kant when he first put forward the idea of a confederation of nations to ensure peace, to reduce standing armies everywhere with the goal, eventually, of eliminating them.
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You mean the founders did not want to arm the commoners to keep the aristocracy in check. Shocked I tell you simply shocked .
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LOL
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The Founders supported the right of the commoners to bear alms.
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SomeDAM Poet
But not for citizens to use them as a check on the Federal Government or even local Governments. That right was reserved for the States.
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SomeDAM Poet
My bad “Alms ” way to early !
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I fully support the right to bare arms.
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“Better alms than arms”
Let them bear the alms
And gruel and crusty bread
Much better than the harms
That come from guns instead
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And knives and pointed forks
Are dangerous indeed
So give the common folks
The minimum they need
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Thank you for keeping us updated with timely comparative data. The narrative of worldwide-pandemic-fueled upticks in homicide rates is effectively undercut with straight numbers. Would that Congress—nay, the American people as a whole— could be so simply persuaded by numbers to beat their guns into 21st-century ploughshares of some sort. We have more to fear than fear itself: it’s fear—fueled self destruction.
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The roots of the Second Amendment lie in the English struggles between the Puritans and the Monarchists. The English Bill of Rights introduces this concept with the idea of providing a protection against a tyrannical King, and the founding fathers most assuredly had this in mind when they wrote the second Amendment. States needed armed forces to assure freedom from federal oppression. States were reluctant to ratify a new constitution without assurances that the Federal would not crush the States.
It was not very long before other fears bolstered the need for protection. The 1803 Hatian slave revolt sent former French slaveowners into the New country and shivers up the spine of slaveholders in the southeast. Thus Militias became slave patrols in those states. Somewhat later, private police forces were used against striking workers, especially in the industrializing north. To my knowledge, neither of these developments influenced the thinking about the second amendment. The only controversy seemed to lie in the realm of what the Federal Government could force State militias to do. The Fugitive Slave Act required Northern police action to return fugitive slaves, but did not excite anyone to suggest anything regarding the Second Amendment that I ever heard.
If the rise in crime is an influential part of discourse in the coming election, as Harris asserts, I doubt seriously whether people will review the situation as rationally as Harris has done. Recent history would suggest something along the lines of Willie Horton. Abit more distant was Nixon and the use of the street violence in 1967 to win in 1968.
I suspect the rational discussion of gun legislation is not going to happen in the present climate of national political discussion.
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Nothing can be done about gun violence says only developed country where this is a routine occurrence.
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And thank you for this informed, interesting post, Roy. See my comments about the Second Amendment above.
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Mr. Harris’s superb article points to yet another danger–that the fascists will use crime as one of their major platforms for seizing control of all the branches of government in 2022 and 2024. Crushing an enemy within has always been a successful rallying cry for fascists attempting to seize power.
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True that
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I have no Idea what is happening in the rest of America. NYC has tough gun control which does not stop guns from making their way into the City from other states. Here in NYC in spite of a rise in shootings and murders, 2020 had a lower murder rate than 2008- 2011 when Bloomberg was touting NYC as the safest big city in America with the lowest murder rates on the City’s records.
Then came 2021, murders continued to rise as compared to 2020 from Jan – April . In May the City relaxed Covid restrictions people went back to work. Many of them had been in NY’s low wage underground cash economy, there because of the New Jim Crow. Low Level drug arrests that left them with lifetime records..A quarter of the construction industry , I would bet larger percentages in restaurants, leisure and hospitality. Sectors crushed in this city. Making these workers ineligible for unemployment. My theory they resorted to selling drugs causing turf wars. It does not take much imagination to see 150 additional murders in a scenario when 1000s were put in that position.
Okay I need a little help here I am having a tough time wrapping my head around this ( not) so I want your opinions. NYC Murders from May on when the city opens .
(Keep in mind if the numbers look large so is NYC at 8.5 million people.)
In May of 2021 there were 37 Murders . In May of 2020 37 murders. No change.
In June 2021, 33 murders vs 43 murders in June 2020 -19.5%
In July 2021 , 29 murders vs 57 murders in July 2020 -49.1%
In August 2021, 53 murders vs 58 murders in August 2020 -8.6%
In Sept. 2021 , 46 murders vs 59 murders in Sept of 2020 -22%
In Oct. 2021, 37 murders vs 41 murders in October of 2020 -9.8%
In Nov. 2021, 24 murders vs 29 murders in November 2020 -17.2%
That is a decline of 65 murders compared to the same 7 months in 2020′ During the summer months when we expect an increase.
In December so far and it is worse because the spike began at the end of November making that months gains less impressive than they would have been There have been 41 murders vs 24 in 2020 a 70.8% increase and that with almost a week to go . Unlike the previous 7 months where there were 2 or 3 scattered weeks that murder increased . Every week since the last week of November has seen a spike in murders.
So I would like some explanation as to what has changed to cause this dramatic spike in murder.
Again murders were flat and then down 7 months in a row till December
But look what started happening in October. At the same time as murder increased gun arrests declined.
393 gun arrests for the month of September 2021
382 gun arrests for the month of October 2021
334 gun arrests for the month of November
Anybody willing to take a bet on December as shootings and murders surged .
The NYPD /PBA did not want to see a headline that murders actually declined in NYC. Upset about Bail Reform, Vaccine Mandates ,BLMs calls for accountability , sure look like they are correcting that . With an outgoing Commissioner and Mayor there will be no one to prove that it was a coordinated effort to further the Right wing anti BLM anti CRT narrative. A Blue Flu . And I doubt it has been confined to NYC
IMHO
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A few years back, I hired some movers, and they took a break to have a smoke. The conversation:
So, how long were you in?
Five years.
Five years for murder? Wow.
Yeah. Something, huh?
Yes, our drug laws seem perfectly designed to ensure the lucrativeness of the drug cartel business and a steady supply of foot soldiers who can find almost no other work.
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The trend in NYC (huge percentage jumps in murder from 2019) is not good, but NYC is the best of the bunch when it comes to violent crime trends in cities. Some cities have been setting all-time records for homicides.
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Flerp
I can only see what I see in NYC . It is a bit troubling that Gun arrests are down as shootings and murders spike with no apparent cause. If this trend of decreased gun arrests continues into December; the only conclusion I can reach is it was pay back to deBlasio by the PBA. Bringing headlines in January that further their agenda. In the summer of 2020 there were serious questions as to whether the NYPD was holding back on enforcement . At that time one could at least make an argument valid or not that they had cause to so.
The NYPD knows who to target. The Mayor and the Commissioner touting the success of community reach out in that effort. It does not take much to realize that the heat is off and start carrying again leading to an increase of shootings in December.
Perhaps AG Tish James can look into the matter as Adams will not touch it with a 10′ stick .
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The NRA and Firearms Industry worked tirelessly to flood the United States with readily accessible guns, rollback gun laws, and neuter enforcement of restrictions to ensure no one in America is safe from gun violence. Mission Accomplished.
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Yup
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RIP, Harry Reid, the ex-boxer turned Senate Majority Leader who fought back Bush, Jr’s, attempted privatization of Social Security.
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Until Americans confront the fact of the most wasteful, unaccounted for and even unaccountable, agency in the country, the US Military has almost 100% support among the populace, one should expect death and carnage to remain a problem in this country. Until we demand a reduction in expenditures and to shrink the MIC to a size that is managable, we will continue to have mayhem an death on a daily basis. Until our love affair with everything military we will have continue having people take their own violent solutions to their problems. Until . . . if you understand what I am saying.
So where do we start in trying to corral the beast considering the number of firearms in this county?
We need a national “Ethical Gun Usage” campaign to at least try to get Americans to understand that it is not acceptable, that it is unethical to walk around with a loaded weapon/firearm whether concealed or not. The bottom line being that the only time a firearm is loaded and ready to fire is when the shooter is pulling the trigger at a shooting range or hunting. At all other times all firearms should be securely stored disabled from being picked up and shot.
Yes, there is ethical gun usage.
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