Rising Hegemon
Violent crime in the United States fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2011 with murder, rape and robbery all going down, although crime remains a serious problem in many urban areas, the FBI said on Monday...
Compared with 2010, the new figures show violent crime down 3.8 percent overall. Property crime was down 0.5 percent.
Of course, there are some notable exceptions...thank the NRA and ALEC:
At least two empiricalpapers have found that Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws like the one in Florida are associated with an average increase rather than a decrease in firearm homicides. This plausibly occurs because the deterrent effects of such laws are outweighed by the increase in the range of legal defenses for the use of lethal violence that become available to attackers. While SYG laws are meant to protect defenders, the absence of impartial witnesses makes it difficult in many cases to determine who ought to have had a “reasonable fear” of whom.
Oh those foreseeable conundrums that do not matter as much as the gun-lobby's money.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
3 comments:
And Florida went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
"...the absence of impartial witnesses makes it difficult in many cases to determine who ought to have had a “reasonable fear” of whom."
Gee, that sounds familiar. From Talking Points Memo:
"As I told in friend in Tampa today though, if you’re ever in a heated argument with anyone, and you’re pretty sure there aren’t any witnesses, it’s always best to kill the other person. They can’t testify, you don’t have to testify, no one else has any idea what happened; how can the state ever prove beyond a doubt is wasn’t self-defense? Holy crap! What kind of system is that?" - A Wisconsin attorney.
What kind of system is that? Conservative. Reich-wing Conservative "Christian".
imagine if the economy was zooming + not being stalled by the GOP.
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