On a related note :
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Democrats Control America’s Most Dangerous Cities. So Why Do They Keep Passing the Buck on Gun Crime?
http://quillette.com/2019/07/09/democrats-control-americas-most-dangerous-cities-so-why-do-they-keep-passing-the-buck-on-gun-crime/
Published on July 9, 2019
Progressives and conservatives traditionally have exhibited different attitudes to the lessons of history.
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A microcosm of this larger tendency was put on display during last month’s Democratic primary debates, which touched on the issue of urban gun violence. No Democratic presidential candidate expressed a sense of responsibility for the plague of violent crime in America’s cities, even though the largest urban areas are almost all controlled by Democratic politicians.
The issue first came up during questions posed to Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. NBC’s moderators challenged Buttigieg by bringing up a recent incident in which a white police officer killed a 54-year-old black man. While that episode nominally relates to the issue of urban gun violence, it also allows Democrats to dwell in ideologically comfortable territory, since progressives have been drawing attention to police-involved shootings for years. (Indeed, it would be far more useful—and revealing—if it were instead conservative Republicans who were being pressed on this problem). Moreover, the preferred Democrat approach—tracing the problem to the country’s original sin of racism—isn’t especially helpful.
In answer to the question, Buttigieg dutifully offered a look back to history, noting “there’s a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time.” A question about the other shootings in South Bend—the vast majority of which are not committed by police officers—would have been far more illuminating. South Bend is one of the 30 most dangerous cities in America, with a per-capita homicide rate (16.8 per 100,000) comparable to that of Chicago (17.5 per 100,000). And this rate has remained virtually unchanged since Buttigieg became mayor in 2012, despite the seven years he’s had to address the problem.
At one point, the mayor did acknowledge the high death toll. “The worst part of the job is dealing with violence,” Buttigieg confessed. “We lose as many as were lost at Parkland [referring to the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting] every two or three years in my city alone. And this is tearing communities apart.” No doubt, this is absolutely true. But there is something oddly passive about the tone of such pronouncements, as if Buttigieg and other politicians were talking about a natural disaster. In truth, this ongoing tragedy is an indictment of American political leadership, including at the local level. If you can’t adequately fight crime as a mayor, why would one imagine you are fit to run a whole country?
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(Some was skipped. Article does continue. Entire article is at the link.)
Zim.
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