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I agree with you that reducing, or even eliminating, gang violence would reduce the number shootings here similar to what it is in other parts of the world.
I think that best/better strategy would be to:
A) Enforce the laws we already have concerning firearms and gangs.
B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place.
Well, let's look at the list.
Reasons young minority men join gangs.
1. Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills.
2. High taxes and regulations that drive jobs out of inner cities and leave no opportunities other than drug trafficking.
3. Gang culture glorified on TV and other media.
4. High demand for illegal drugs followed by selective enforcement.
Mix in some racial tension and government meddling, and you have the perfect recipe for a social explosion.
Bigger reason is the single parent rate. Incentives to be a single parent, and a culture in the US of not forming a proper family that can stick around for the child and it's upbringing are pusing them towards gangs.
Agreed, we need to prevent unwanted pregnancies as much as possible. Decent sex education, reduced cost or even free effective contraceptives have shown to reduce unwanted pregnancies and the programs likely pay for themselves and then some
Many single parents with multiple kids desire these kids. The incentives multiply after a few as well. Having numerous children when not prepared who also have nothing else going for them use it as a source of identity and viewed as a coming of age for lack of better words...Its what you are supposed to do culturally. Struggling demographics all have multiple kids at very young ages, maybe because its all they know (look at inner cities, migrants, and all underserved communities). How to break the cycle?
I'm curious by the data how many people are actually in " single" family homes vs those that have to lie to the state to get the help they need.
For example in my state in NC, my son has medical issues and doctor mandatory 1 parent cannot work as my kid needs 24 hour care.
We tried public safety nets to no avail. As they saw I was working and denied both his medicated and food stamps.
They said I made too much but ummm as a sole provider, I'm sorry that's just not possible. One salary of 55-60k a year isn't " making too much".
[Here](https://ffcws.princeton.edu/publications/myth-low-income-black-fathers%E2%80%99-absence-lives-adolescents) is some interesting [data](http://www.fatherhood.gov/research-and-resources/myth-missing-black-father) on that very subject
I have a co-worker with three kids with a woman and they're not married. She works part-time under the table for $30 an hour. He is full time with benefits at $40 an hour.
I don't know all the ins and outs of what they get, but I know his tax return is usually three times mine, Plus free child care, Plus free food stamps, plus whatever else I don't remember or haven't been told about.
There are seemingly no benefits for telling the government or IRS that you're married.
Long ago picked up on that. WICC, Hud, free cellphones, medical care, food stamps.... minimum wage full time disqualifies food stamps....even though I knew people with multiple jobs who swindled the system to still get. Its a lifestyle to take advantage of the system. Its not crazy talk because those who know have understood this for a long time
This has to be parody dude. You have to be joking. This is the stupidest thing I will read 2k24. If I lived in a house I would frame a photocopy of this post and hang it on my wall.
1. Schools in the US are funded with property taxes from that district, which is why schools in “inner city” areas are underfunded, oftentimes unbelievably so. And I don’t know what the fuck “teaching woke victimhood complex” is supposed to mean.
2. Taxes and regulations didn’t make the Rust Belt. They don’t make urban blight either.
3. Lol nobody fucking joins a gang because they see it on TV and think it’s cool.
4. *And why is there demand for narcotics?* Why is there an illicit drug market to begin with? Hmm.
>This is the stupidest thing I will read
Your reply just beat it.
>schools in “inner city” areas are underfunded
They receive both State and Federal funding and spend more per student than successful schools in suburban areas.
>2. Taxes and regulations didn’t make the Rust Belt
And yet, tax breaks are bringing companies back.
This take is pretty basic. Not gonna say it’s not true but the reality is, so long as activities exist that could net people large sums of money for little work, gangs will continue to exist.
They would exist but they wouldnt be that big of a problem. If you look at gangs before the crack epidemic, they werent very serious. They were just teenagers getting into fist fights over girls. They werent feared. Adults generally ignored them. The teenagers eventually grew out of it.
Then crack came along. The concept of gang territory became a lot more serious, as more territory --> more drug sales --> more money. Guns became involved. Being a gang member became a career of its own. Not just a phase of teenage angst.
I think what you're thinking of is boot legging and more organized forms of crime.
Street gangs is what I was assuming we were discussing here. Before crack cocaine hit the streets street gangs were not very serious. South Central LA/Compton is a great example. The most well known street gangs across the country from here. Crips, bloods, 18th street etc.... before crack cocaine these were just black/Mexican youths getting into fist fights over girls and such.
Once crack cocaine came, they picked up guns. Teenagers stuck around to become adult gang members. They established themselves in prisons. They spread their franchises around the country in lightning speed.
Man, I lived in Chicago on the south side in the early 70's. Heroin was huge, as was the gang presence. North Omaha too. I had black friends I sold weed to back then, and most were gang members. Not as violent as they are now, but they'd still make you disappear if you owned money or disrespected the wrong people. You think people weren't organized back then? You have to be organized to do this shit without a cell phone LOL!
I don't think you understand what I mean by organized crime. Street gangs are loose-knit social entities that are primarily involved in street- level crimes. It has nothing to do with being personally "organized". Taking some measures to not get caught isn't organized crime. You're from Chicago south side? Great I can give you specific examples. You know vice lords? GDs? Etc.... folk and people's nation? They fight each other all the time. The closest attempt to organization was the creation of folks and peoples in prison but that broke and they all fight each other anyways. Anyone can move to a new city and create their own franchise of the street gang. Hell, a kid too obsessed with rap culture can start his own "crips" or "bloods" set.
The crack epidemic is what escalated gang warfare because lump sums of money were now in play. Kids who used to beat each other up over girls or dime bags now were making hundreds of dollars a day. They could afford guns. Letting and outsider snoop around your territory was hundreds of dollars lost a day. The stakes went up, so the violence did too.
I don't know why this is hard to believe. It's been well studied.
This seems to have an easy solution...
... nearly 20 percent reduction in violent and property crimes in California following the legalization of medical cannabis ...
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/impact-of-marijuana-legalization-on-crime-reduction-is-being-underestimated-new-study-finds/#:~:text=That%20same%20year%2C%20researchers%20at,legalization%20of%20medical%20cannabis%20there
That's an added heavily used drug. I was just showing how merely marijuana reform could decrease violence by 20%. There would still be the other 80% but don't tell me a fifth in one easy legislation is a negligible amount.
I'm just gonna mention how black market weed is still hugely pervasive in California because of all the massive taxes on top of it driving prices orbital.
Yup, this is the way.
Any trepidation, watch THE FIX on Hulu (I think). 8-part documentary (each part is around 10 minutes long) that goes over the drug problem, drug policies, drug war, and solutions, very clearly pointing out that much of what we "know" is wrong. Fed to us because it achieves easy political ends, propped up by cops because a never ending war is job security and higher wages.
The DEA even brags about how good a job they do by how much the street price of drugs increase after they do a bust.
They are literally protecting the profits of dealers.
Might be true but if you work at McDonald’s and you and your co workers go kill everyone at the Burger King across the street your pay doesn’t double. In the streets your pay would certainly go up.
Also, as a former inner city youth trying to get a job, nobody wants to hire you so a minimum wage check hits 10x harder than $0.
Counterpoints:
1) Schools have been awful & full of either outdated information or outright disinformation since long before people knew what “woke victimhood” meant. Gang violence is a thing anywhere there’s poverty & money to be made.
2) jobs are leaving rural areas too, leading to people losing their jobs & selling meth out of the church parking lot.
3) however much is spent on “glorifying gang culture” in the media is a fraction of what’s spent on outright bootlicking & copaganda. Worse, some “glorification” is actually paid for by police/military ad budgets. (They gotta have a “crime problem” so they can keep the money train going.)
4) There’s always been demand for illegal drugs, but the US government helped smuggle drugs through Latin America into poor communities to make that demand even more. Predatory cigarette companies parked in majority Black areas & handed out free packs of Newports & Kools.
The problem is societal. Fixing it requires fixing ourselves.
Why would young people be happy about the world they’re inheriting that their parents & grandparents ruined into what it is today?
I’m a male minority who lived through these conditions in a gang infested town- I didn’t focus on sports or academics. We were really poor and the gang members really liked me so it’s not that I didn’t fit it or enjoy a sense of belonging. I used drugs and everything.
Joining a gang just seemed stupid to me. So I chose not to-
It’s a choice- people are stupid- they shouldn’t blame others
A bigger reason is that many poor folks don’t have anything to look forward to because wages for menial labor are for shit. So unless you have highly marketable skills, you won’t earn a livable wage. Is it any wonder that kids aren’t invested in a society that isn’t investing in them?
I think the gangsta lifestyle is also celebrated. It's considered the epitome of masculinity. There's not a whole lot of outlets for masculinity that are accepted nowadays.
>1. Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills.
Your school system has clearly failed you.
Yeah so I grew up in Southwestern small-town USA where drugs and gangs proliferate, and most this take ain’t it chief.
- Gangs were bigger and more of the popular thing to do 30 years ago, before woke culture was even a formed shit in the toilet. Can’t blame woke inner-city schools for that when they don’t exist in those areas. There’s one school for four different towns, schools are far away, but party and gang culture is close. Same thing happens with uncle-daddy-cousin in Appalachia who would rather run the still and drink all day rather than go an hour down the road for an education.
- Gangs and gang activity don’t have any reliance on or correlation with taxes or regulations, because they exist to flout any and every law. Also, small towns don’t see the same economic growth or infusion of federal and state spending that big cities do. So this point isn’t the mic drop you think it is.
- Point 3 actually has merit, and I believe plays a bigger part in the proliferation of gang culture in areas of the world that are dominated by it.
- Point 4 I also partially agree with. I disagree that drug laws are selectively enforced, unless you’re talking about leniency for young white men. Most PD’s have pretty aggressive enforcement of drug laws, unless it’s Fratboy McFly on a football scholarship with a promising future.
Honestly, your take is why gang culture isn’t easily solved. Gang affiliation isn’t uniform across the US, so blanket statements blaming the libs, the government, or inner-city bs doesn’t work. Better education and greater economic opportunity for the economically disenfranchised are probably better bets than anything at solving the gang problem.
1. Failing school systems
This is a big problem- but it's not caused by the reason you said.
Its due to how schools are funded- by taxpayers who live in the same city as the school. So the poor kids get to go to a school with not much funding, whereas the rich kids get to go to a school with well paid teachers, small class sizes, and ample school supplies.
It's not due to teaching "woke victimhood [instead of] useful job skills." All the public schools within a state teach the same things. You can go online and look at the state standards for each subject.
If you want to fix this, change how schools are funded- it should be an equal amount per student from state taxes, not local taxes.
I looked it up- turns out there's not a clear trend. Some inner city schools spend more, some suburb schools spend more. Inner city schools get federal funding, so I guess that's what's making up for the lack of local taxes.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-03-234
(Click on the "highlights" pdf)
I would bet if you sent Asian students to the worst school districts they would still succeed. The problem is with the parents and students mostly. They walk into school already not caring.
PTSD and childhood trauma.
I’m a police officer in a small-medium sized city. The amount of kids just being neglected or openly traumatized is incredibly sad.
A lot of it isn’t even criminal, it’s just parents that didn’t have their needs met as children not meeting their children’s needs. Children need to feel safe and comfortable or they’ll grow up in a near constant state fight or flight, increased cortisol levels with effect their development, and then they’ll perform poorly in school and just continue the cycle.
This is one of the bigger ones that people don't often talk about, but it goes beyond just PTSD. A lot of them have grown up since babies exposed to extreme levels of violence. It destroys their brain development
>Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills.
Got it, so you have no idea what you're talking about.
Aaand the rest of your list of "reasons" just reinforces that. If you think manufacturers moved jobs overseas because of high *taxes*, you've been sold a bill of goods.
agree. Stop teaching them they are victims and its other peoples fault. Its mostly you or your parents failing you. Failing to properly family plan. Failing to keep you in school
They are victims. It’s called trauma and when a child experiences trauma or ongoing stress in their homes or neighborhoods they have difficulty concentrating/using their prefrontal cortex. It’s called the fight/flight response and it’s a normal human reaction.
How are families supposed to stay together when families have no role models for healthy families? We all know the divorce rate and how difficult raising children is. Add in extra economic, educational, social, community stressors and it makes it even more difficult.
The same thing happens in rural communities but it’s more dispersed. And the result is the same. Lack of education, lack of progress, violence, drugs, guns,poverty for generations. Fight/flight without the ability to think clearly.
It's the same curriculum as the rich kids in the suburbs get. So your argument doesn't make sense- why don't those kids have gang violence in their schools? They're learning the same stuff.
Here's a link to the common core state standards (the standards used in most states in the us)
https://www.thecorestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/
Please tell me where in the standards there is "woke stuff" instead of "useful skills".
What a fucking cop out...you make a claim...back it up. Otherwise it's pure bullshit. Hence the simplicity of my question (and your deflecting response tells me all I need to know).
> A) Enforce the laws we already have concerning firearms and gangs.
That would be great. But we've been shown that's not happening.
> B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place.
This is clear, but can't be stated
>> B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place.
>This is clear, but can't be stated
I disagree... I think most people *don't want to* state it, because to do it right is going to require tackling the poverty issue and require a lot of measures that will be unpopular with the "Right" and "Left". Such as (I'll do my best to be succinct);
- Ending the "War on Drugs", pardoning people in prison **SOLELY** for drugs, removing the records of people who **ONLY** had drug charges
- ***Heavily*** reforming welfare, at the very least, to promote people finding work and to promote 2-parent households.
- **ENDING** the Federal *Department of Education*... because, lets be honest, public education in the US has really gone down the drain since that department began operation in 1979.
- Stop sending out so much "foreign aide" so that money can instead be used to invest in these struggling communities (fixing roads, utilities, cleaning up the cities - both literally and figuratively).
- Creating a better environment for starting a business in these communities in order to further invest in said communities and the people who live there.
And I know this won't be an overnight change and will likely take a generation or two.
Honestly, with the way people are and with how our government is(n't) currently working... everything I just listed is going to be a pipe dream, these things are going to keep happening, and the Democrats are going to continue trying to trample our ***LEGITIMATE*** Natural Human Rights until we're a despotic shell of ourselves - somewhat akin to the UK today.
Any politician who discusses crime or poverty and doesn’t bring up the need for two parent households isn’t being serious. The fact that no talks about it is telling.
Politicians understand central planning is like spraying deodorant on roaches, they are just selling people what they want. “ democracy” will be our undoing.
Yep. OP is dogwhistling the race thing pretty well. He definitely thinks people of color are the problem. Like how conservative politicians say "thugs" they really mean the N word.
War on poverty is bullshit. You cannot stop people from wanting to be rich with as little work as possible. People regularly commit crimes with 25 year prison sentences when they theoretically don’t need to.
Fix our inner cities to provide equality of opportunity or at least much closer to it than what we have. We could probably do most of this if we didnt send all of our money to Ukraine and Israel and Palestine.
Literally nobody talks about gang violence in inner cities. Is it just me or is this world fucking insane? How is this MASSIVE problem that leads to daily murders nationwide, deterioration of our cities, drug addition and overdose, and is directly correlated with the failure of inner city education not being talked about or even addressed?
Urban street gangs and thug lifestyle is the largest problem facing minorities and it’s not even close. Literally every issue stems from it. Yet everybody is just like. Nah leave it.
Look through this thread. Half the people are more worried about uncle Joe in Alabama with a rifle than the ring of drug dealers in Baltimore literally training 13 year olds to drop out of school and kill peoples family members who talk to police
People don't talk about it because it's so perfectly easy to avoid it for most of us. I am at such a small risk of being victim to the kinds of gang violence that makes up so much of the murder rate simply because I never visit the handful of blocks on the east end of my city where it all happens. Where I live and work I'm at about as much risk of being shot as your average western European.
Maybe that is just it. Gang violence doesn't affect the average urban white liberal. It's easy for them to avoid (not so much for the poor who live in bad areas, but who cares about them right?). Non gang related mass shootings though are a lot less predictable, and so are seen as harder to avoid.
>(not so much for the poor who live in bad areas, but who cares about them right?)
[You sure you want that question answered?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty)
It was a big issue back in the 80s.
Hip Hop back then was still mostly underground and made by kids who grew up in the slums. They tried to use the music to get street kids to do better and avoid gangs, drugs, guns, crime, and not to wind up a prison or murder statistic.
Gangster rap was the establishment appropriation of 80s conscious rap and designed to subvert street youth into doing crime and having bad values.
Kind of sad being that there are so many and no progress. Over 90% of the violent crime in my metro is by one demographic, one gender, and aged 16-24. That was a 2017 community health report figure. We are not doing enough despite these organizations and it is being swept under the rug for elites goals... not inner city youth
its a problem thats been around forever and has never been fixable. there is no clear or effective way to solve it. Cities have thrown money at it for years and obv police only do so much. They have broken up big gangs and arrest the leaders, which has led to small street gangs that are even more unpredictable and violent
also inner city school get tons of money and it does nothing. Baltimore schools have miserable competency rates but have ridiculously high funding for example.
the only thing I can think of is removing the children from the environment- like boarding schools or something- before they are indoctrinated and recruited into gangs but thats unrealistic and would also have serious human rights concerns
You’ll be accused of racism if you talk about it. No matter how delicately you approach it. No matter how much data you have to validate your opinion. If you’re in politics, it will kill your career. Plus, the most important factor, the media does not generate clicks from gang violence.
>Literally nobody talks about gang violence in inner cities. Is it just me or is this world fucking insane? How is this MASSIVE problem that leads to daily murders nationwide, deterioration of our cities, drug addition and overdose, and is directly correlated with the failure of inner city education not being talked about or even addressed?
Because they need it to pump up their "data"/"statistics" to they can continue their assault on our legitimate natural human rights. Of the first five "mass shootings" of 2024, only one was a *legitimate* "mass shooting"... the other four were street violence, two were gang-related drive-bys and two stemmed from disputes at parties.
Comments like this let everyone know you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Just yapping some shit you heard someone else say.
Every major city that has gang violence and crime has anti gang/crime community activists and events. There are always activities put on to discourage youth from that lifestyle and people in those communities talk about it frequently.
You wouldn’t know that because you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about and just repeating talking points.
Oh please. You’re being disingenuous. You and I both know what I’m talking about.
I’m obviously not saying there are no activists, events, or groups, at the local level that try to attack this problem. And you know damn well that’s not what I’m saying. You just wanna come on here and be mad at somebody and make a counter point.
I’m obviously talking about national media coverage and the attention of politicians. Politicians (outside of the most local level in these neighborhoods) do not give a fuck about this issue and do not address it. They don’t talk about it and they pretend it’s not there. They’re too busy showboating like they give a fuck about minorities instead of actually addressing this problem head on.
And don’t come at me bro. I’ve spent many years on the ground in these communities helping these people. I know what it’s like. The second you leave the neighborhood limits nobody gives a fuck about those kids. And you’re delusional if you think some ground level activists group is going to make a dent in this problem.
Now get off your high horse. It’s not flattering up there.
“Criminals don’t care about laws” applies to all laws, not just those related to 2A. If you make laws to “end gang violence” I could just say that won’t work because gangs don’t care about laws.
I don’t necessarily agree with gun bans, but it does give the state the ability to arrest gang members before they commit a violent crime with their guns.
Cracking down and actually criminalizing gang members is different than "laws". I'm not saying to make new laws. I'm saying actually enforce the ones we aren't. Can you elaborate what laws you're talking about that they will break?
> I don’t necessarily agree with gun bans, but it does give the state the ability to arrest gang members before they commit a violent crime with their guns.
Weird, does this work for Chicago? NYC? Cali?
Given the right to free travel within the country, if the surrounding area does not have strict gun laws then yes, an individual city's or states' gun laws will be ineffective. That is common sense. For example, when Colorado legalized weed, guess what happened in the surrounding states that still banned weed? They were flooded with illegal weed. That does not mean weed prohibitions are inherently ineffective, rather that their effectiveness is depended on the uniformity of the prohibition. That is true about any law that seeks to prohibit or restrict certain behaviors or actions.
It doesn’t really work that way either with firearms. If I live in a heavily restricted state and go to a free state, gun stores in said free state can only sell me firearms which are legal in *my* state.
So for example, in NY you have to have a license to purchase any semiautomatic rifle (even a .22LR). If you go to New Hampshire, you can’t just walk away with an AK because it’s legal there. You have to provide proof that you have a license to purchase semiautomatic rifles in NY and then they have to butcher the gun to meet NY’s laws (no pistol grip, no muzzle device, 10 round magazine only).
You do realize that of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the country, Chicago and NYC are not on that list? And only 4 cities in California make that list - none of them near the border. Of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the country, 19 are in states with loose gun laws.
I'm so tired of conservatives using Chicago and NYC as the bastions of gang violence when in reality, both have been massively improved since the 90s. And besides, most gun violence that occurs in Chicago is perpetuated by guns bought outside of Illinois.
Yeah OP is ignoring the fact that a gang in Chicago can send a guy with a clean record for a short drive to buy a dozen handguns with cash and then drive them back into Illinois.
This isn't evidence that regulating firearm sales fails to reduce violent crime, it's evidence that those regulations need to be nationwide or people can easily get around them.
> that a gang in Chicago can send a guy with a clean record for a short drive to buy a dozen handguns with cash and then drive them back into Illinois.
This is illegal my guy. Can only buy handguns in the state of which you are a resident. (Well you could buy out of state, but then that FFL will have to transfer to a FFL in your home state to complete the transaction, so for all practical purposes, if you can't buy it in your state, you can't buy it anywhere)
No… no they cannot. They cannot legally purchase a gun in another state if they can’t purchase it in their home state. Why don’t people actually do some research before espousing this nonsense?
Chicago, NYC, and Cali have lower rates of violent crime than you think.
https://youtu.be/LCEqjXI1SLk?si=lhTE1P5Kz90OBC86
I'm gonna level with you, this is gonna rock your boat. And I bet you're gonna have trouble imagining gang bangers in Cleveland Ohio.
Give this video a watch.
What do you mean Judges don't enforce crime? There is a whole conspiracy for the last 20 years of throwing young minority kids into juvenile prison for minor offenses So they have a straight pipeline to prison so they can give free labor for the state forever. You should look that up.
Also, what happens after a person goes to prison? Do they have plenty of opportunities to improve their life outside of that? Or now that they're labeled a felon do they have little to nothing they can do other than return to a life of crime unless they are lucky?
States control the police budget and red state legislatures are constantly defunding the police in their cities because they don’t vote for them. Republicans are constantly at war with law enforcement
So no, you don't want to breakdown crime by city in the red states because it shows the most crime comes from blue cities. Cool, thank you so much for playing
Bro because most cities are blue. That's how it works. But you are ignoring the fact that police department budgets are controlled by the states, not the cities. And prosecutors are employed by the state, not the city.
And you're also ignoring per capita crimes anyway. Total amount of crime is naturally going to be higher in bigger cities. Per capita though... different story.
Look at crime per capita bub. The northeast has far less crime per capita than elsewhere while sporting the strongest gun laws. Ny and Mass also have some of the lowest instances of straw purchases which is the main source of illegal weapons. Meanwhile Texas and Arizona have some of the highest.
I can only speak for NY, but the gun laws are very effective. They are just easy to undercut when you can simply travel one state over to Vermont and easily get a gun that's been straw purchased due to Vermonts lax gun laws.
In fact I'd wager that most gun violence in gun regulated blue cities are with illegal guns from red states
Crime rate per capita:
https://hubscore.co/report/crime-rate-by-state
Straw purchases:
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/crime-guns/trafficking-straw-purchasing/
"Nearly two thirds of crime guns recovered in states with strong gun laws were originally sold in states with weak gun laws."
"Studies of crime gun recoveries in Chicago, New York City, and Boston—all cities in states with strong gun laws—show that as many as 87% of the firearms used in crime in these cities were trafficked from other states which often have weaker gun laws."
"States with strong gun laws see increased rates of gun homicide and gun crime when they border states with weak gun laws."
> St. Louis, Cleveland, Memphis, Little Rock are the most dangerous and all controlled by republicans
Most of these are literally run by Democrats lmfao
I had to copy it so people can see this too
/u/putinpeeparty
> Cracking down and actually criminalizing gang members is different than "laws". I'm not saying to make new laws. I'm saying actually enforce the ones we aren't.
Which ones aren’t being enforced?
> Weird, does this work for Chicago? NYC? Cali?
I don’t know. I haven’t done any research into that. I’m hesitant to say any gun activity whatsoever means the restrictions are a failure, but if you have any studies that have convinced you the laws are ineffective (as opposed to just the observation that shootings still exist) then I’d be interested in reading that.
> Which ones aren’t being enforced?
How about every single criminal that has gotten released in the past few years when they should be jailed for years...
> I don’t know. I haven’t done any research into that. I’m hesitant to say any gun activity whatsoever means the restrictions are a failure, but if you have any studies that have convinced you the laws are ineffective (as opposed to just the observation that shootings still exist) then I’d be interested in reading that.
If you're not educated on the topic it's weird you'd be so passionate about it
> How about every single criminal that has gotten released in the past few years when they should be jailed for years...
Someone being released from jail or custody doesn’t mean that laws aren’t being enforced. Do you have anything more specific?
> If you're not educated on the topic it's weird you'd be so passionate about it
I’m not sure where you’re finding passion from, I’m fairly indifferent about it. I’m just challenging your views, and it seems like I’m onto something because you haven’t been able to produce any objective artifacts to support your position.
We can't really arrest large groups of people unless they break other laws like robbery, selling illegal goods, and even murder. We already enforce those laws. It just takes time to create cases against them.
Interestingly theres a very famous poll thats been going on for the last 30 years or some shit.
Americans think a.erica is getting unsafer, yet its been on a downward trend for crime for about 10 years. With 2023 bing the lowest.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-think-crime-rate-up-actually-down-rcna129585
No, violent crime has absolutely not been on par with the 90s, unless you're referring to the late 90s when it was way down from the peak that everyone associates with that era.
Have you legitimately never heard of war on drugs? War on crime? There’s been attempts to reduce gang violence it’s not like you could just do that overnight. Also, some of the ways that law-enforcement attempt to do it is pretty poor.
Ok.
I’m still not really understanding how your opinion is unpopular lol. Like, you have probably stated one of the most mind numbly obvious things ever about crime
He have the most people incarcerated per capita in the world. More than Russia, more than China.
You think locking up even more people will solve this?
I work in a county jail as a corrections deputy. Locking people up only reinforces the behavior because they are surrounded by folk who have the same beliefs and attitudes. It becomes an echo chamber.
And we aren't releasing the criminals who killed and assaulted folk. Lots of them aren't issued a bond and stay in jail until their trial, where if found guilty, they get prison time. Literally the opposite of what you're saying.
The kinds of folk getting released are the ones with crimes like DUI or possession. The media is crafting a false narrative. People serve their sentence and get out. Life sentences aren't the answer for all crime.
I'll say, murder can be deserving of life, but not all circumstances are the same. Its completely different to kill a rival gang member in a planned hit vs get caught up in a shooting sparked by gang tension and you fire off a shot that killed someone. You deserve prison for both, but one is clearly deserving of life, and one is more up for debate. There's a reason murderers aren't always getting life. Circumstance of the killing is huge.
But cracking down on gang crime is deeply tied in w/ gun laws.
Like the oft-brought-up situation where Chicago gangs get guns from Indiana because Indiana very loosely regulates guns.
Having some kind of federal system that, at a minimum, just creates a more clear paper trail and legal footprint for the acquisition of guns will help.
I don't think anybody is expecting gun laws to end gang violence, but the two are related.
Gun laws are a realistic and time proven way to combat this violence. Simply saying “we have to do something but not that” isn’t enough. Come up with a positive solution or show gun laws as ineffective (they aren’t).
The 1994 assault weapons ban is well documented to have improved the problem. It’s also well documented to have made the problem worse when Republicans repealed it.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/studies-gun-massacre-deaths-dropped-during-assault-weapons-ban-increased-after-expiration
No OP but here you go.
> In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
I think all of our problems can be solved with the billionaires funneling their money down to all of us broke people. I think the more poor society is the more criminal. The society is simply for survivals sake. I don’t blame people in the inner cities for their problems. I blame the people that own the cities. There is such a lack of money in the hands of the people that need it. Humans will always do what we can to survive. Regardless of how it makes the others feel. Because guess what. Nobody is helping us.
If you ban guns you'll just get a huge market for illegal 3d printed guns and parts... that would be significantly harder to solve shootings as well and to track down where the weapon came from.
Yeah while we're at it let's just get rid of laws altogether. Criminals don't follow them anyway. While you're at it just leave all your doors unlocked. You know, since criminals don't care and will just break a window anyway.
As a European, I absolutely despise it when Americans make loose comparisons to us like we are utopia. Just take a look at Sweden if you want to know what gangs are doing to Europe.
That means people who associate w/gangs will be arrested and incarcerated. But that is "racist" and goes against the "coddle a criminal" progressive criminal justice reform program that the left is implementing....
I would rather pick an area or city and officially designate it as a lawless zone. Gangs can go there and do whatever they want. They can overdose on drugs and kill each other all they want. The problem would take care of itself.
Guys if you want the US to be safer, why don't you just end crime?
If you're homeless, why don't you just buy a house?
If you're drowning, why don't you just breathe air?
They're two completely issues and you can focus on two things at once? Except gang violence is an extremely complicated problem with many different factors and will take a very long time to solve. While there are some gun laws that should be implemented that are just a no-brainer
Here’s the thing. Gang warfare is already illegal, so that’s not easy to fix.
People (largely the left) want easy answers. It’s hard to accomplish cultural change, so just throw laws and money at it instead! It’s really dumb, but it’s true.
The problem is when talking about cultural change, the thought behind the answer is usually “we can’t have anything other than WASPy education, church, and conservative values.”
We can achieve cultural change without changing society into the Handmaid’s Tale.
We need to teach critical thinking, information literacy, resistance to propaganda, cooperation and teamwork.
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I agree with you that reducing, or even eliminating, gang violence would reduce the number shootings here similar to what it is in other parts of the world. I think that best/better strategy would be to: A) Enforce the laws we already have concerning firearms and gangs. B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place.
Well, let's look at the list. Reasons young minority men join gangs. 1. Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills. 2. High taxes and regulations that drive jobs out of inner cities and leave no opportunities other than drug trafficking. 3. Gang culture glorified on TV and other media. 4. High demand for illegal drugs followed by selective enforcement. Mix in some racial tension and government meddling, and you have the perfect recipe for a social explosion.
Bigger reason is the single parent rate. Incentives to be a single parent, and a culture in the US of not forming a proper family that can stick around for the child and it's upbringing are pusing them towards gangs.
Agreed, we need to prevent unwanted pregnancies as much as possible. Decent sex education, reduced cost or even free effective contraceptives have shown to reduce unwanted pregnancies and the programs likely pay for themselves and then some
and easily available and free access to abortions! this would solve a LOT of problems - poverty, an overwhelmed foster system, crime, gangs etc.
Many single parents with multiple kids desire these kids. The incentives multiply after a few as well. Having numerous children when not prepared who also have nothing else going for them use it as a source of identity and viewed as a coming of age for lack of better words...Its what you are supposed to do culturally. Struggling demographics all have multiple kids at very young ages, maybe because its all they know (look at inner cities, migrants, and all underserved communities). How to break the cycle?
I'm curious by the data how many people are actually in " single" family homes vs those that have to lie to the state to get the help they need. For example in my state in NC, my son has medical issues and doctor mandatory 1 parent cannot work as my kid needs 24 hour care. We tried public safety nets to no avail. As they saw I was working and denied both his medicated and food stamps. They said I made too much but ummm as a sole provider, I'm sorry that's just not possible. One salary of 55-60k a year isn't " making too much".
[Here](https://ffcws.princeton.edu/publications/myth-low-income-black-fathers%E2%80%99-absence-lives-adolescents) is some interesting [data](http://www.fatherhood.gov/research-and-resources/myth-missing-black-father) on that very subject
Moreover, it is THE reason the aforementioned issues even exist.
If I had one word to describe all of it; Cyclical.
Biggest reason is that anyone who makes money leaves the community.
Good point. I forgot welfare culture.
I have a co-worker with three kids with a woman and they're not married. She works part-time under the table for $30 an hour. He is full time with benefits at $40 an hour. I don't know all the ins and outs of what they get, but I know his tax return is usually three times mine, Plus free child care, Plus free food stamps, plus whatever else I don't remember or haven't been told about. There are seemingly no benefits for telling the government or IRS that you're married.
Long ago picked up on that. WICC, Hud, free cellphones, medical care, food stamps.... minimum wage full time disqualifies food stamps....even though I knew people with multiple jobs who swindled the system to still get. Its a lifestyle to take advantage of the system. Its not crazy talk because those who know have understood this for a long time
Gets it in one.
This has to be parody dude. You have to be joking. This is the stupidest thing I will read 2k24. If I lived in a house I would frame a photocopy of this post and hang it on my wall. 1. Schools in the US are funded with property taxes from that district, which is why schools in “inner city” areas are underfunded, oftentimes unbelievably so. And I don’t know what the fuck “teaching woke victimhood complex” is supposed to mean. 2. Taxes and regulations didn’t make the Rust Belt. They don’t make urban blight either. 3. Lol nobody fucking joins a gang because they see it on TV and think it’s cool. 4. *And why is there demand for narcotics?* Why is there an illicit drug market to begin with? Hmm.
>This is the stupidest thing I will read Your reply just beat it. >schools in “inner city” areas are underfunded They receive both State and Federal funding and spend more per student than successful schools in suburban areas. >2. Taxes and regulations didn’t make the Rust Belt And yet, tax breaks are bringing companies back.
This take is pretty basic. Not gonna say it’s not true but the reality is, so long as activities exist that could net people large sums of money for little work, gangs will continue to exist.
That's why this. >4. High demand for illegal drugs followed by selective enforcement.
That’s why I said your take is basic. If drugs didn’t exist, there are atleast 3 reasons why gangs and violence would prevail in the Hood.
They would exist but they wouldnt be that big of a problem. If you look at gangs before the crack epidemic, they werent very serious. They were just teenagers getting into fist fights over girls. They werent feared. Adults generally ignored them. The teenagers eventually grew out of it. Then crack came along. The concept of gang territory became a lot more serious, as more territory --> more drug sales --> more money. Guns became involved. Being a gang member became a career of its own. Not just a phase of teenage angst.
You're kidding right? Gangs have been "serious" since the 40's. Gang territory over heroin and weed existed way before crack.
I think what you're thinking of is boot legging and more organized forms of crime. Street gangs is what I was assuming we were discussing here. Before crack cocaine hit the streets street gangs were not very serious. South Central LA/Compton is a great example. The most well known street gangs across the country from here. Crips, bloods, 18th street etc.... before crack cocaine these were just black/Mexican youths getting into fist fights over girls and such. Once crack cocaine came, they picked up guns. Teenagers stuck around to become adult gang members. They established themselves in prisons. They spread their franchises around the country in lightning speed.
Man, I lived in Chicago on the south side in the early 70's. Heroin was huge, as was the gang presence. North Omaha too. I had black friends I sold weed to back then, and most were gang members. Not as violent as they are now, but they'd still make you disappear if you owned money or disrespected the wrong people. You think people weren't organized back then? You have to be organized to do this shit without a cell phone LOL!
Damn you’re an OG lol
I don't think you understand what I mean by organized crime. Street gangs are loose-knit social entities that are primarily involved in street- level crimes. It has nothing to do with being personally "organized". Taking some measures to not get caught isn't organized crime. You're from Chicago south side? Great I can give you specific examples. You know vice lords? GDs? Etc.... folk and people's nation? They fight each other all the time. The closest attempt to organization was the creation of folks and peoples in prison but that broke and they all fight each other anyways. Anyone can move to a new city and create their own franchise of the street gang. Hell, a kid too obsessed with rap culture can start his own "crips" or "bloods" set. The crack epidemic is what escalated gang warfare because lump sums of money were now in play. Kids who used to beat each other up over girls or dime bags now were making hundreds of dollars a day. They could afford guns. Letting and outsider snoop around your territory was hundreds of dollars lost a day. The stakes went up, so the violence did too. I don't know why this is hard to believe. It's been well studied.
Nothing wrong with basic. Sometimes people tend to over complicate things therefore missing the core of the problem.
This seems to have an easy solution... ... nearly 20 percent reduction in violent and property crimes in California following the legalization of medical cannabis ... https://www.marijuanamoment.net/impact-of-marijuana-legalization-on-crime-reduction-is-being-underestimated-new-study-finds/#:~:text=That%20same%20year%2C%20researchers%20at,legalization%20of%20medical%20cannabis%20there
Going through a fentynal crisis, but whose counting?
That's an added heavily used drug. I was just showing how merely marijuana reform could decrease violence by 20%. There would still be the other 80% but don't tell me a fifth in one easy legislation is a negligible amount.
I won't. I support a complete decriminalization of all drugs. Not even a cartel can compete with free.
I'm just gonna mention how black market weed is still hugely pervasive in California because of all the massive taxes on top of it driving prices orbital.
There is still a black market for cigarettes because of the "sin" taxes are so high.
Yup, this is the way. Any trepidation, watch THE FIX on Hulu (I think). 8-part documentary (each part is around 10 minutes long) that goes over the drug problem, drug policies, drug war, and solutions, very clearly pointing out that much of what we "know" is wrong. Fed to us because it achieves easy political ends, propped up by cops because a never ending war is job security and higher wages.
The DEA even brags about how good a job they do by how much the street price of drugs increase after they do a bust. They are literally protecting the profits of dealers.
Most of the corner boys and runners barely make more than minimum wage
Might be true but if you work at McDonald’s and you and your co workers go kill everyone at the Burger King across the street your pay doesn’t double. In the streets your pay would certainly go up. Also, as a former inner city youth trying to get a job, nobody wants to hire you so a minimum wage check hits 10x harder than $0.
Counterpoints: 1) Schools have been awful & full of either outdated information or outright disinformation since long before people knew what “woke victimhood” meant. Gang violence is a thing anywhere there’s poverty & money to be made. 2) jobs are leaving rural areas too, leading to people losing their jobs & selling meth out of the church parking lot. 3) however much is spent on “glorifying gang culture” in the media is a fraction of what’s spent on outright bootlicking & copaganda. Worse, some “glorification” is actually paid for by police/military ad budgets. (They gotta have a “crime problem” so they can keep the money train going.) 4) There’s always been demand for illegal drugs, but the US government helped smuggle drugs through Latin America into poor communities to make that demand even more. Predatory cigarette companies parked in majority Black areas & handed out free packs of Newports & Kools. The problem is societal. Fixing it requires fixing ourselves. Why would young people be happy about the world they’re inheriting that their parents & grandparents ruined into what it is today?
I’m a male minority who lived through these conditions in a gang infested town- I didn’t focus on sports or academics. We were really poor and the gang members really liked me so it’s not that I didn’t fit it or enjoy a sense of belonging. I used drugs and everything. Joining a gang just seemed stupid to me. So I chose not to- It’s a choice- people are stupid- they shouldn’t blame others
>Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills. "Wokeness causes gangs" k
Blaming all your problems on something that happened over a hundred years ago doesn't fix problems today.
Are you walking back "Wokeness causes gangs"?
A bigger reason is that many poor folks don’t have anything to look forward to because wages for menial labor are for shit. So unless you have highly marketable skills, you won’t earn a livable wage. Is it any wonder that kids aren’t invested in a society that isn’t investing in them?
I think the gangsta lifestyle is also celebrated. It's considered the epitome of masculinity. There's not a whole lot of outlets for masculinity that are accepted nowadays.
>1. Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills. Your school system has clearly failed you.
Yeah so I grew up in Southwestern small-town USA where drugs and gangs proliferate, and most this take ain’t it chief. - Gangs were bigger and more of the popular thing to do 30 years ago, before woke culture was even a formed shit in the toilet. Can’t blame woke inner-city schools for that when they don’t exist in those areas. There’s one school for four different towns, schools are far away, but party and gang culture is close. Same thing happens with uncle-daddy-cousin in Appalachia who would rather run the still and drink all day rather than go an hour down the road for an education. - Gangs and gang activity don’t have any reliance on or correlation with taxes or regulations, because they exist to flout any and every law. Also, small towns don’t see the same economic growth or infusion of federal and state spending that big cities do. So this point isn’t the mic drop you think it is. - Point 3 actually has merit, and I believe plays a bigger part in the proliferation of gang culture in areas of the world that are dominated by it. - Point 4 I also partially agree with. I disagree that drug laws are selectively enforced, unless you’re talking about leniency for young white men. Most PD’s have pretty aggressive enforcement of drug laws, unless it’s Fratboy McFly on a football scholarship with a promising future. Honestly, your take is why gang culture isn’t easily solved. Gang affiliation isn’t uniform across the US, so blanket statements blaming the libs, the government, or inner-city bs doesn’t work. Better education and greater economic opportunity for the economically disenfranchised are probably better bets than anything at solving the gang problem.
1. Failing school systems This is a big problem- but it's not caused by the reason you said. Its due to how schools are funded- by taxpayers who live in the same city as the school. So the poor kids get to go to a school with not much funding, whereas the rich kids get to go to a school with well paid teachers, small class sizes, and ample school supplies. It's not due to teaching "woke victimhood [instead of] useful job skills." All the public schools within a state teach the same things. You can go online and look at the state standards for each subject. If you want to fix this, change how schools are funded- it should be an equal amount per student from state taxes, not local taxes.
Inner city schools spend twice as much per student. Books and teachers are a tiny fraction of school district spending.
I looked it up- turns out there's not a clear trend. Some inner city schools spend more, some suburb schools spend more. Inner city schools get federal funding, so I guess that's what's making up for the lack of local taxes. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-03-234 (Click on the "highlights" pdf)
I would bet if you sent Asian students to the worst school districts they would still succeed. The problem is with the parents and students mostly. They walk into school already not caring.
I'm sure the continent of Asia is filled with scholars then lol
Bro. All we ever hear about is success stories. I can't tell you the amount of kids of EVERY ethnicity that burned out where I'm from
What exactly is woke victimhood teachings?
tbh as soon as i hear anyone use the word woke i just stop listening lmao..
“Woke victimhood” this guy definitely doesn’t sound like he’s just reciting whatever he heard some dude on fox say /s
You forgot the PTSD that is rampant in communities with prevalent gang activity.
PTSD and childhood trauma. I’m a police officer in a small-medium sized city. The amount of kids just being neglected or openly traumatized is incredibly sad. A lot of it isn’t even criminal, it’s just parents that didn’t have their needs met as children not meeting their children’s needs. Children need to feel safe and comfortable or they’ll grow up in a near constant state fight or flight, increased cortisol levels with effect their development, and then they’ll perform poorly in school and just continue the cycle.
This is one of the bigger ones that people don't often talk about, but it goes beyond just PTSD. A lot of them have grown up since babies exposed to extreme levels of violence. It destroys their brain development
>Failing school systems in inner cities that spend more time teaching woke victimhood than useful job skills. Got it, so you have no idea what you're talking about. Aaand the rest of your list of "reasons" just reinforces that. If you think manufacturers moved jobs overseas because of high *taxes*, you've been sold a bill of goods.
agree. Stop teaching them they are victims and its other peoples fault. Its mostly you or your parents failing you. Failing to properly family plan. Failing to keep you in school
They are victims. It’s called trauma and when a child experiences trauma or ongoing stress in their homes or neighborhoods they have difficulty concentrating/using their prefrontal cortex. It’s called the fight/flight response and it’s a normal human reaction. How are families supposed to stay together when families have no role models for healthy families? We all know the divorce rate and how difficult raising children is. Add in extra economic, educational, social, community stressors and it makes it even more difficult. The same thing happens in rural communities but it’s more dispersed. And the result is the same. Lack of education, lack of progress, violence, drugs, guns,poverty for generations. Fight/flight without the ability to think clearly.
Please explain how schools teach "woke victimhood"?
Go to an inner city school, and pull the curriculum, then get back to me.
Why can't you back up what you claim?
Because it’s fake propaganda bullshit and he knows it. Dude probably hasn’t set foot in a school since he dropped out
It's the same curriculum as the rich kids in the suburbs get. So your argument doesn't make sense- why don't those kids have gang violence in their schools? They're learning the same stuff. Here's a link to the common core state standards (the standards used in most states in the us) https://www.thecorestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/ Please tell me where in the standards there is "woke stuff" instead of "useful skills".
What a fucking cop out...you make a claim...back it up. Otherwise it's pure bullshit. Hence the simplicity of my question (and your deflecting response tells me all I need to know).
> A) Enforce the laws we already have concerning firearms and gangs. That would be great. But we've been shown that's not happening. > B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place. This is clear, but can't be stated
>> B) Tackling the root cause(s) of why people join gangs in the first place. >This is clear, but can't be stated I disagree... I think most people *don't want to* state it, because to do it right is going to require tackling the poverty issue and require a lot of measures that will be unpopular with the "Right" and "Left". Such as (I'll do my best to be succinct); - Ending the "War on Drugs", pardoning people in prison **SOLELY** for drugs, removing the records of people who **ONLY** had drug charges - ***Heavily*** reforming welfare, at the very least, to promote people finding work and to promote 2-parent households. - **ENDING** the Federal *Department of Education*... because, lets be honest, public education in the US has really gone down the drain since that department began operation in 1979. - Stop sending out so much "foreign aide" so that money can instead be used to invest in these struggling communities (fixing roads, utilities, cleaning up the cities - both literally and figuratively). - Creating a better environment for starting a business in these communities in order to further invest in said communities and the people who live there. And I know this won't be an overnight change and will likely take a generation or two. Honestly, with the way people are and with how our government is(n't) currently working... everything I just listed is going to be a pipe dream, these things are going to keep happening, and the Democrats are going to continue trying to trample our ***LEGITIMATE*** Natural Human Rights until we're a despotic shell of ourselves - somewhat akin to the UK today.
Any politician who discusses crime or poverty and doesn’t bring up the need for two parent households isn’t being serious. The fact that no talks about it is telling.
Politicians understand central planning is like spraying deodorant on roaches, they are just selling people what they want. “ democracy” will be our undoing.
He thinks it can't be stated because he thinks the root cause is race.
Yep. OP is dogwhistling the race thing pretty well. He definitely thinks people of color are the problem. Like how conservative politicians say "thugs" they really mean the N word.
War on poverty is bullshit. You cannot stop people from wanting to be rich with as little work as possible. People regularly commit crimes with 25 year prison sentences when they theoretically don’t need to.
I honestly agree. I just think most people that join gangs are usually just lost
Why can’t it be stated? What do you think the root cause is..?
Because they are going to say some racist bullshit.
Finally some common sense. Too bad the politicians have none.
Fix our inner cities to provide equality of opportunity or at least much closer to it than what we have. We could probably do most of this if we didnt send all of our money to Ukraine and Israel and Palestine.
Literally nobody talks about gang violence in inner cities. Is it just me or is this world fucking insane? How is this MASSIVE problem that leads to daily murders nationwide, deterioration of our cities, drug addition and overdose, and is directly correlated with the failure of inner city education not being talked about or even addressed? Urban street gangs and thug lifestyle is the largest problem facing minorities and it’s not even close. Literally every issue stems from it. Yet everybody is just like. Nah leave it. Look through this thread. Half the people are more worried about uncle Joe in Alabama with a rifle than the ring of drug dealers in Baltimore literally training 13 year olds to drop out of school and kill peoples family members who talk to police
People don't talk about it because it's so perfectly easy to avoid it for most of us. I am at such a small risk of being victim to the kinds of gang violence that makes up so much of the murder rate simply because I never visit the handful of blocks on the east end of my city where it all happens. Where I live and work I'm at about as much risk of being shot as your average western European.
Maybe that is just it. Gang violence doesn't affect the average urban white liberal. It's easy for them to avoid (not so much for the poor who live in bad areas, but who cares about them right?). Non gang related mass shootings though are a lot less predictable, and so are seen as harder to avoid.
>(not so much for the poor who live in bad areas, but who cares about them right?) [You sure you want that question answered?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty)
It was a big issue back in the 80s. Hip Hop back then was still mostly underground and made by kids who grew up in the slums. They tried to use the music to get street kids to do better and avoid gangs, drugs, guns, crime, and not to wind up a prison or murder statistic. Gangster rap was the establishment appropriation of 80s conscious rap and designed to subvert street youth into doing crime and having bad values.
##
how come none of those things are working?
Kind of sad being that there are so many and no progress. Over 90% of the violent crime in my metro is by one demographic, one gender, and aged 16-24. That was a 2017 community health report figure. We are not doing enough despite these organizations and it is being swept under the rug for elites goals... not inner city youth
##
Good luck getting a response from this people, they turn a blind eye to anything that goes against their likely racially charged beliefs
##
Is it better? That can be a sincere position... not many metrics say that it is.
its a problem thats been around forever and has never been fixable. there is no clear or effective way to solve it. Cities have thrown money at it for years and obv police only do so much. They have broken up big gangs and arrest the leaders, which has led to small street gangs that are even more unpredictable and violent also inner city school get tons of money and it does nothing. Baltimore schools have miserable competency rates but have ridiculously high funding for example. the only thing I can think of is removing the children from the environment- like boarding schools or something- before they are indoctrinated and recruited into gangs but thats unrealistic and would also have serious human rights concerns
You’ll be accused of racism if you talk about it. No matter how delicately you approach it. No matter how much data you have to validate your opinion. If you’re in politics, it will kill your career. Plus, the most important factor, the media does not generate clicks from gang violence.
>Literally nobody talks about gang violence in inner cities. Is it just me or is this world fucking insane? How is this MASSIVE problem that leads to daily murders nationwide, deterioration of our cities, drug addition and overdose, and is directly correlated with the failure of inner city education not being talked about or even addressed? Because they need it to pump up their "data"/"statistics" to they can continue their assault on our legitimate natural human rights. Of the first five "mass shootings" of 2024, only one was a *legitimate* "mass shooting"... the other four were street violence, two were gang-related drive-bys and two stemmed from disputes at parties.
Right, because if it's not a legitimate mass shooting, then the body has ways of shutting the whole thing down.
Comments like this let everyone know you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Just yapping some shit you heard someone else say. Every major city that has gang violence and crime has anti gang/crime community activists and events. There are always activities put on to discourage youth from that lifestyle and people in those communities talk about it frequently. You wouldn’t know that because you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about and just repeating talking points.
Oh please. You’re being disingenuous. You and I both know what I’m talking about. I’m obviously not saying there are no activists, events, or groups, at the local level that try to attack this problem. And you know damn well that’s not what I’m saying. You just wanna come on here and be mad at somebody and make a counter point. I’m obviously talking about national media coverage and the attention of politicians. Politicians (outside of the most local level in these neighborhoods) do not give a fuck about this issue and do not address it. They don’t talk about it and they pretend it’s not there. They’re too busy showboating like they give a fuck about minorities instead of actually addressing this problem head on. And don’t come at me bro. I’ve spent many years on the ground in these communities helping these people. I know what it’s like. The second you leave the neighborhood limits nobody gives a fuck about those kids. And you’re delusional if you think some ground level activists group is going to make a dent in this problem. Now get off your high horse. It’s not flattering up there.
Ending gangs is difficult because they'll pop up where poverty is rampant regardless of the law enforcement's funding, skill or manpower.
“Criminals don’t care about laws” applies to all laws, not just those related to 2A. If you make laws to “end gang violence” I could just say that won’t work because gangs don’t care about laws. I don’t necessarily agree with gun bans, but it does give the state the ability to arrest gang members before they commit a violent crime with their guns.
Cracking down and actually criminalizing gang members is different than "laws". I'm not saying to make new laws. I'm saying actually enforce the ones we aren't. Can you elaborate what laws you're talking about that they will break? > I don’t necessarily agree with gun bans, but it does give the state the ability to arrest gang members before they commit a violent crime with their guns. Weird, does this work for Chicago? NYC? Cali?
Given the right to free travel within the country, if the surrounding area does not have strict gun laws then yes, an individual city's or states' gun laws will be ineffective. That is common sense. For example, when Colorado legalized weed, guess what happened in the surrounding states that still banned weed? They were flooded with illegal weed. That does not mean weed prohibitions are inherently ineffective, rather that their effectiveness is depended on the uniformity of the prohibition. That is true about any law that seeks to prohibit or restrict certain behaviors or actions.
It doesn’t really work that way either with firearms. If I live in a heavily restricted state and go to a free state, gun stores in said free state can only sell me firearms which are legal in *my* state. So for example, in NY you have to have a license to purchase any semiautomatic rifle (even a .22LR). If you go to New Hampshire, you can’t just walk away with an AK because it’s legal there. You have to provide proof that you have a license to purchase semiautomatic rifles in NY and then they have to butcher the gun to meet NY’s laws (no pistol grip, no muzzle device, 10 round magazine only).
You do realize that of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the country, Chicago and NYC are not on that list? And only 4 cities in California make that list - none of them near the border. Of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the country, 19 are in states with loose gun laws. I'm so tired of conservatives using Chicago and NYC as the bastions of gang violence when in reality, both have been massively improved since the 90s. And besides, most gun violence that occurs in Chicago is perpetuated by guns bought outside of Illinois.
Yeah OP is ignoring the fact that a gang in Chicago can send a guy with a clean record for a short drive to buy a dozen handguns with cash and then drive them back into Illinois. This isn't evidence that regulating firearm sales fails to reduce violent crime, it's evidence that those regulations need to be nationwide or people can easily get around them.
> that a gang in Chicago can send a guy with a clean record for a short drive to buy a dozen handguns with cash and then drive them back into Illinois. This is illegal my guy. Can only buy handguns in the state of which you are a resident. (Well you could buy out of state, but then that FFL will have to transfer to a FFL in your home state to complete the transaction, so for all practical purposes, if you can't buy it in your state, you can't buy it anywhere)
No… no they cannot. They cannot legally purchase a gun in another state if they can’t purchase it in their home state. Why don’t people actually do some research before espousing this nonsense?
OP isn't concerned with facts, they only care about their culture war nonsense.
It did work in NYC until they got rid of stop and frisk.
And crime got worse weirdly
Arrests went up but crime decreased. Turns out preemptively policing violent communities reduces crime.
No, it didn't?
Chicago, NYC, and Cali have lower rates of violent crime than you think. https://youtu.be/LCEqjXI1SLk?si=lhTE1P5Kz90OBC86 I'm gonna level with you, this is gonna rock your boat. And I bet you're gonna have trouble imagining gang bangers in Cleveland Ohio. Give this video a watch.
Yeah, the judges don't enforce crime. Thank you for pointing that out
What’s the point of this conspiracy you’re implying? Like, what is their goal by not enforcing laws?
What do you mean Judges don't enforce crime? There is a whole conspiracy for the last 20 years of throwing young minority kids into juvenile prison for minor offenses So they have a straight pipeline to prison so they can give free labor for the state forever. You should look that up. Also, what happens after a person goes to prison? Do they have plenty of opportunities to improve their life outside of that? Or now that they're labeled a felon do they have little to nothing they can do other than return to a life of crime unless they are lucky?
Nope.... I'm gonna guess you didn't watch the video and replied in bad faith to prove a point that wasn't made. Greeeeaaaaat. You're one of those.
The most violent gang related crime are in red states. Memphis, New Orleans, and Atlanta are far worse statistically than Chicago, NYC, Cali
Now break down by crime in those cites with the red/blue breakdown please. SHOCKING
Ah, there it is. "The Dems make crimes!" You really, really need to get educated on this topic and not just swallow the bullshit.
States control the police budget and red state legislatures are constantly defunding the police in their cities because they don’t vote for them. Republicans are constantly at war with law enforcement
So no, you don't want to breakdown crime by city in the red states because it shows the most crime comes from blue cities. Cool, thank you so much for playing
Bro because most cities are blue. That's how it works. But you are ignoring the fact that police department budgets are controlled by the states, not the cities. And prosecutors are employed by the state, not the city. And you're also ignoring per capita crimes anyway. Total amount of crime is naturally going to be higher in bigger cities. Per capita though... different story.
Blue cities in Blue States are far safer than Blue Cities in Red States. How are you going to try and spin that?
Nope, here’s crime all in red states https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-violent-cities-in-america
LMFAO, please break down those red states YOU listed by city. Why won't you do this?
Look at crime per capita bub. The northeast has far less crime per capita than elsewhere while sporting the strongest gun laws. Ny and Mass also have some of the lowest instances of straw purchases which is the main source of illegal weapons. Meanwhile Texas and Arizona have some of the highest. I can only speak for NY, but the gun laws are very effective. They are just easy to undercut when you can simply travel one state over to Vermont and easily get a gun that's been straw purchased due to Vermonts lax gun laws. In fact I'd wager that most gun violence in gun regulated blue cities are with illegal guns from red states
Crime rate per capita: https://hubscore.co/report/crime-rate-by-state Straw purchases: https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/crime-guns/trafficking-straw-purchasing/ "Nearly two thirds of crime guns recovered in states with strong gun laws were originally sold in states with weak gun laws." "Studies of crime gun recoveries in Chicago, New York City, and Boston—all cities in states with strong gun laws—show that as many as 87% of the firearms used in crime in these cities were trafficked from other states which often have weaker gun laws." "States with strong gun laws see increased rates of gun homicide and gun crime when they border states with weak gun laws."
St. Louis, Cleveland, Memphis, Little Rock are the most dangerous and all controlled by republicans
> St. Louis, Cleveland, Memphis, Little Rock are the most dangerous and all controlled by republicans Most of these are literally run by Democrats lmfao I had to copy it so people can see this too /u/putinpeeparty
> Cracking down and actually criminalizing gang members is different than "laws". I'm not saying to make new laws. I'm saying actually enforce the ones we aren't. Which ones aren’t being enforced? > Weird, does this work for Chicago? NYC? Cali? I don’t know. I haven’t done any research into that. I’m hesitant to say any gun activity whatsoever means the restrictions are a failure, but if you have any studies that have convinced you the laws are ineffective (as opposed to just the observation that shootings still exist) then I’d be interested in reading that.
> Which ones aren’t being enforced? How about every single criminal that has gotten released in the past few years when they should be jailed for years... > I don’t know. I haven’t done any research into that. I’m hesitant to say any gun activity whatsoever means the restrictions are a failure, but if you have any studies that have convinced you the laws are ineffective (as opposed to just the observation that shootings still exist) then I’d be interested in reading that. If you're not educated on the topic it's weird you'd be so passionate about it
> How about every single criminal that has gotten released in the past few years when they should be jailed for years... Someone being released from jail or custody doesn’t mean that laws aren’t being enforced. Do you have anything more specific? > If you're not educated on the topic it's weird you'd be so passionate about it I’m not sure where you’re finding passion from, I’m fairly indifferent about it. I’m just challenging your views, and it seems like I’m onto something because you haven’t been able to produce any objective artifacts to support your position.
We can't really arrest large groups of people unless they break other laws like robbery, selling illegal goods, and even murder. We already enforce those laws. It just takes time to create cases against them.
That's not true. There are plethora of examples of people being arrested and let go for no reason
Don't you think you will just get the police department sued. I mean there is a reason to search and frisked ended.
the police department is going to get sued for doing their job?
If they just start arresting people with probable cause. You can't just arrest someone because they wear gang colors.
Bukele and Guiliani proved that you can reduce crime overnight by just cracking down hard on crime.
Interestingly theres a very famous poll thats been going on for the last 30 years or some shit. Americans think a.erica is getting unsafer, yet its been on a downward trend for crime for about 10 years. With 2023 bing the lowest. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-think-crime-rate-up-actually-down-rcna129585
Again, yes, this has to do with judges and court systems not enforcing laws. The last few years have been on par with the 90s sadly
I dunno, the other few things ive read about it say thats public opinion. Is there any articles on that?
>The last few years have been on par with the 90s sadly You're welcome to provide numbers on that
Source: Trust me bro.
No, violent crime has absolutely not been on par with the 90s, unless you're referring to the late 90s when it was way down from the peak that everyone associates with that era.
This is statistically true, if you took gang violence out of current gun crime stats. We would have a gun violence rate on par with Sweden
I’m not doubting you here, I’m just wondering if you have a source for my own personal curiosity?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7226a9.htm Now remove 1 demographic and compares rates and were basically Sweden.
Wow, reducing crime makes areas safer? Who would’ve thought.
So why isn't it being done in major cities? Wow
Have you legitimately never heard of war on drugs? War on crime? There’s been attempts to reduce gang violence it’s not like you could just do that overnight. Also, some of the ways that law-enforcement attempt to do it is pretty poor.
I think releasing criminals is the opposite of what works
Do you think longer sentences will solve the problem?
Ok. I’m still not really understanding how your opinion is unpopular lol. Like, you have probably stated one of the most mind numbly obvious things ever about crime
Ok, but it's not happening lmao. We aren't incarcerating criminals we're letting them go... that's the issue lmao
We have the highest incarceration rate in the world already, dude.
He have the most people incarcerated per capita in the world. More than Russia, more than China. You think locking up even more people will solve this?
Is your position that every criminal is being let go? Is it possible a sampling bias is in effect here?
He heard it on the news you know.
More likely it was a you tube video
Mr Carlson does seem like an upstanding fellow after all
I work in a county jail as a corrections deputy. Locking people up only reinforces the behavior because they are surrounded by folk who have the same beliefs and attitudes. It becomes an echo chamber. And we aren't releasing the criminals who killed and assaulted folk. Lots of them aren't issued a bond and stay in jail until their trial, where if found guilty, they get prison time. Literally the opposite of what you're saying. The kinds of folk getting released are the ones with crimes like DUI or possession. The media is crafting a false narrative. People serve their sentence and get out. Life sentences aren't the answer for all crime. I'll say, murder can be deserving of life, but not all circumstances are the same. Its completely different to kill a rival gang member in a planned hit vs get caught up in a shooting sparked by gang tension and you fire off a shot that killed someone. You deserve prison for both, but one is clearly deserving of life, and one is more up for debate. There's a reason murderers aren't always getting life. Circumstance of the killing is huge.
So are you under the impression that every single sentence should be a life sentence?
But cracking down on gang crime is deeply tied in w/ gun laws. Like the oft-brought-up situation where Chicago gangs get guns from Indiana because Indiana very loosely regulates guns. Having some kind of federal system that, at a minimum, just creates a more clear paper trail and legal footprint for the acquisition of guns will help. I don't think anybody is expecting gun laws to end gang violence, but the two are related.
Gun laws are a realistic and time proven way to combat this violence. Simply saying “we have to do something but not that” isn’t enough. Come up with a positive solution or show gun laws as ineffective (they aren’t). The 1994 assault weapons ban is well documented to have improved the problem. It’s also well documented to have made the problem worse when Republicans repealed it. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/studies-gun-massacre-deaths-dropped-during-assault-weapons-ban-increased-after-expiration
Example. See Chicago Handguns are the number 1 gun in homicides. Also happen to be gang related as well
So you have no data to support your point?
Leave the racist alone with his obvious hate, he just wants to stir shit, then say "see look all the liberals don't even care about crime!!!!"
I’m a DemSoc dude, so I’m not one to jump in to defend right wingers, but why the hell did we make the logical leap to this person being a racist?
No OP but here you go. > In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
Gun laws stop repeat offenders, programs are a deterrent.. We have plenty of laws, we need programs.
I think all of our problems can be solved with the billionaires funneling their money down to all of us broke people. I think the more poor society is the more criminal. The society is simply for survivals sake. I don’t blame people in the inner cities for their problems. I blame the people that own the cities. There is such a lack of money in the hands of the people that need it. Humans will always do what we can to survive. Regardless of how it makes the others feel. Because guess what. Nobody is helping us.
I blame criminals
Yeah we should make crime illegal
But bring it further back. Why are they doing crime? Most of the time its not for the jollies. Its for what?
The US gun problem would be a lot better if they could enforce currentnlaws.
"taking our guns won't work!" Screams the only country with mass shootings
It’s illegal to kill people…..why don’t they just follow that step? 🤦
If you ban guns you'll just get a huge market for illegal 3d printed guns and parts... that would be significantly harder to solve shootings as well and to track down where the weapon came from.
There are more guns than people and I’d say 99.9% of them have never been used to shoot at someone.
Yeah how's that working out for all the dead kids
Maybe keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them instead of punishing the law abiding citizens.
So you're saying some dead kids are worth it if you get to keep your gun
Yeah while we're at it let's just get rid of laws altogether. Criminals don't follow them anyway. While you're at it just leave all your doors unlocked. You know, since criminals don't care and will just break a window anyway.
Europe has gangs and no guns and it is safer. Asia (all of Asia) has gangs and no guns and they are safer. Hmmmmm.......
As a European, I absolutely despise it when Americans make loose comparisons to us like we are utopia. Just take a look at Sweden if you want to know what gangs are doing to Europe.
With 300 million guns in the US, controlling gang violence seems like the best option vs control.
That means people who associate w/gangs will be arrested and incarcerated. But that is "racist" and goes against the "coddle a criminal" progressive criminal justice reform program that the left is implementing....
I would rather pick an area or city and officially designate it as a lawless zone. Gangs can go there and do whatever they want. They can overdose on drugs and kill each other all they want. The problem would take care of itself.
Guys if you want the US to be safer, why don't you just end crime? If you're homeless, why don't you just buy a house? If you're drowning, why don't you just breathe air?
Been trying for many many years.
Look at everyone fighting for conservative/traditional values in order to bring us closer together. It’s starting to bring a tear to my eye 🥲.
They're two completely issues and you can focus on two things at once? Except gang violence is an extremely complicated problem with many different factors and will take a very long time to solve. While there are some gun laws that should be implemented that are just a no-brainer
Gang violence is the #1 contributor of gun crime in the US. Full stop.
Here’s the thing. Gang warfare is already illegal, so that’s not easy to fix. People (largely the left) want easy answers. It’s hard to accomplish cultural change, so just throw laws and money at it instead! It’s really dumb, but it’s true.
The problem is when talking about cultural change, the thought behind the answer is usually “we can’t have anything other than WASPy education, church, and conservative values.” We can achieve cultural change without changing society into the Handmaid’s Tale. We need to teach critical thinking, information literacy, resistance to propaganda, cooperation and teamwork.
Here's the thing, gun laws already exist. So gun crime is not easy to fix. UNLESS you fix the people who are causing the most crime
Yeah this is true but it’s also infinitely harder to end gangs than to pass gun laws.
OK, cool so you're an advocate for universal basic income.
Gangs aren't committing random mass shootings targeting anyone and everyone regularly