Chicago Gun Ban is Unconstitutional

[The Dharma Bum]

Well, you are welcome to draw your own conclusions, I guess.

However considering the fact that the largest group of women to get abortions by race are white and that the decline in crime correlates to a decline in abortion rates within the same time period it looks to me like the decline is due to anti crime, drug, and gang interventions introduced in the late 90s in response to astronomical crime rates in many areas. The reality is the vast majority of crime is caused by a small number of very prolific criminals who teach others their methods and organize others to do nefarious deeds, it's a subculture. The fact is we threw a lot of those guys in prison and kept them there for a very long time and the crime rate went way down. It's still declining to this day due to the fact that they aren't on the streets spreading their techniques to the next generation.

I think one of the unrecognized effects of our system is that it had created a huge criminal under class among underprivileged segments of society. We've begun to address some of those issues a little more effectively and I think that has helped as well.

[Winchester]

[The Dharma Bum]

That's neither here nor there because because I don't believe abortion has anything to do with the drop in crime rate. However if you imagine there to be some sort of correlation there I can see how you might see it that way.

[exploited]

There are a couple reasons for why crime peaked when it did, and why crime dropped when it did.

1. American society had an influx of damaged PTSD victims, who came back from Vietnam and Korea and other various hellholes completely disillusioned. These were not wars of necessity, they did not prevent any great threat, and this is why those forced to take up arms in them were unable to handle the stress. Once they came back, they were greeted by an extremely ungrateful society who did little to help them adjust. Many were driven into the welcoming arms of gangs, particularly biker gangs, who provided the same sort of brotherhood they had become accustomed too.

2. Roe v. Wade definitely had an impact, although that impact logically wouldn't be seen for at least a decade. So this doesn't account for the immediate drop in crime. I'm also not sure how strong the causation is for this...

3. The illegalization of leaded gasoline played a huge role, IMO. We now know that lead is a toxin, and that it can produce all sorts of violent, anti-social behaviour. Yet we were pumping this out of our cars for a long time. These cars were not environmentally friendly, and they produced alot of exhaust. Once people had long-term exposure to it, the effects of lead poisoning became apparent, and the result was lots of otherwise non-criminal people committing heinous crimes against their fellow man. Luckily, once the ban came into effect, the level of lead in the average persons blood dropped quickly and significantly - resulting in less crimes of passion and a drastic decrease in crime.

4. The introduction of organized crime legislation allowed police to start breaking up criminal organizations. We were able to put people in jail who killed dozens of people - as Dharma noted, the majority of crime is committed by a small number of people who use their talents to recruit others, indoctrinating them into the subculture provided by these gangs, and using them to further their criminal influence. Removing them from society saved countless future lives.

5. The introduction of anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs has allowed doctors, teachers and the government to really crack down on non-conforming members of society. For good or ill, we took alot of kids who may have grown up to change the world OR turn rotten and injected them with substances intended to stabilize their emotions and moods. As a result, we saw less opportunistic crime - the negative side effect being a society that went out of way to punish individualism.

[The Dharma Bum]

I think aberrant behavior is much more linked to environmental contamination than we realize. I like the lead hypothesis.

[Dylan]

[Gremlin]