The Elephant In The Room

Violent crime is on the upswing across the United States.

The Biden administration knows it has a problem. That is one of the reasons Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland had a media event yesterday to address the problem of violent crime.

The narrative seems to be to blame the increase in violent crime on the pandemic, Trump and the Second Amendment.

I even heard an ABC reporter claim that the surge in violent crime had been going on for four years under the Trump administration.

Is that true?

Violent crime in the United States has generally been trending down since 1993.

Reported violent crime rate in the United States from 1990 to 2019

In fact, violent crime started to increase in the 2014-2016 in the second Obama/Biden administration before the downward trend resumed during the Trump administration in 2017-2019.

The "report" that violent crime was increasing during the Trump years is demonstrably false.

It is true that violent crime spiked in 2020.

However, violent crime did not spike coincident with the beginning of the pandemic.

The spike did not begin until June.

What happened at the beginning of June? 

Is it a coincidence that this was the same time that the Black Lives Movement gained traction as well as calls to "defund the police"?

Is it fair to blame this on Trump?

Is it fair to blame this on guns? I can tell you that there were about the same number of guns out there in 2020 as there were in 2019. The increase in homicides is also not due to assault rifles and the like. Most murders are the result of handguns. Most of the murders are also taking place in cities that have the strictest gun laws in the country.

Here are the murders in New York City in 2019 and 2020 as reported by the NYPD in its year-end report for 2020.

Murders for 2020 were up 44.8% compared to 2019.

Source:https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new-york-city-reaches-record-low-2020

Interestingly, the NYPD revealed in the same report the number of hate crimes in NYC in 2020 compared to 2019.

Recall that the media narrative has been that President Trump fueled hatred towards Asians by calling out the Chinese Communist Party for its role in causing the pandemic.

Hate crimes against Asians in NYC increased by 33% in 2020 vs. 2019.

The number of such incidents went from 3 to 4!

However, compare that to anti-Semitic hate crimes.

They increased 44% during the year from 119 to 233.

Source: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new-york-city-reaches-record-low-2020

In fact, there were more hate crimes against Jews in 2020 than all the other groups combined!

How often have you heard about this?

Here is the data on shooting incidents in Portland, Oregon which has been at the center of many BLM, Antifa and "Defund the Police" protests from 2019 to the present.

When did the spike occur? It started in June, 2020.

Source: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/81203

The violent crime numbers look just as bad in many other big cities almost all of which are liberal, leftist bastions.

Consider the surging crime statistics in 2021 on top of the surge in violent crime these cities experienced in 2020.

Can Biden continue to blame this on the pandemic?

Trump has been gone since January.

In his speech yesterday Biden says he will institute a "zero tolerance" approach to take on rogue gun dealers. 

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/biden-lays-plan-combat-gun-220130103.html

"If you willfully sell a gun to someone who is prohibited from possessing it, if you willfully fail to run a background check, if you willfully falsify a record, if you willfully fail to cooperate with the tracing requests or inspections, my message to you is this ... 'We'll find you and we'll seek your license to sell guns."

That is well and good. 

However, does anyone seriously believe that taking away a gun dealers license to sell guns will make any difference at all in the violent crime in our cities?

Does Biden really think that the guns being used in these crimes were purchased from gun dealers who were licensed to begin with?

In the meantime, Biden talks incessantly about the January 6th "insurrection" at the Capitol that did not involve one person carrying a firearm.

Has there ever been an insurrection in history in which no one brought a weapon to the coup?

Biden has also avoided condemning any of the violent acts of last summer involving BLM and Antifa and likes to skirt the issue of defunding the police by talking about the need for police reform.

All the while, almost all of those who perpetuated violence on America's streets over the last year have not been prosecuted.

In Portland, 90% of those arrested have had their charges dropped.

Is it any surprise that when no one is held accountable for their crimes it just emboldens more people to commit crimes?  

This is the fundamental belief behind the "broken windows" theory of policing that Mayor Rudy Giuliani introduced in New York City that led to a dramatic decrease in crime in the 1990's in that city.

That theory basically held that having a no tolerance for small crimes and disorder would have major impacts on larger crimes.

It was a huge success until it was undermined by those who claimed it was overzealous and "racist".

I couldn't help but think of that example today as word came out that the New York State Bar Association had suspended Giuliani's license to practice law because he allegedly made "false and misleading claims" about election fraud in 2020 while representing Donald Trump.

Seriously? A lawyer is suspended from practicing law by advocating for his client utilizing sworn affidavits, videos and statistical analysis? 

If this is not bad enough you might recall the news about two attorneys from Brooklyn last summer who were arrested after firebombing a police car during the BLM riots in NYC.

What were the sanctions against them by the New York Bar?

They have been offered a plea deal for the criminal charges but have until July 1 to consider taking it.

If Joe Biden is looking to implement a "zero tolerance" policy there are plenty of areas that he should be looking at.

Taking on rogue gun dealers. Have had it. I am all for it.

However, that is like being worried about a mouse in the basement while a rogue elephant is rampaging through your house.

When is Joe Biden going to start recognizing and doing something about the elephant in the room?