ā¦and if we could get the Fascist Pig Party (aka āāāRepublicansāāā) the hell out of our government, we could have some sane gun control laws that would maybe, just maybe, lower the number of mass shootings as well.
āYou risk your lives every day for the safety of the people you donāt even know. Thatās why each of you, each and every one of you, is a hero. Itās no accident that violent crime is near a record 50-year low.ā
I find the actual quote kind of problematic on multiple levels. ACAB aside, not every cop is a good guy let alone a hero.
And he is crediting police with a record 50-year low? I donāt buy that.
But yes, the perception that Republicans are ātough on crimeā needs to go away cause their fear mongering has nothing to do with actual crime prevention.
Does lead pollution increase crime? We perform the first meta-analysis of the effect of lead on crime, pooling 542 estimates from 24 studies. The effect of lead is overstated in the literature due to publication bias. Our main estimates of the mean effect sizes are a partial correlation of 0.16, and an elasticity of 0.09. Our estimates suggest the abatement of lead pollution may be responsible for 7ā28% of the fall in homicide in the US. Given the historically higher urban lead levels, reduced lead pollution accounted for 6ā20% of the convergence in US urban and rural crime rates. Lead increases crime, but does not explain the majority of the fall in crime observed in some countries in the 20th century. Additional explanations are needed.
The first meta-analysis of the lead-crime hypothesis was published in 2022. āThe Lead-Crime Hypothesis: A Meta-Analysisā, authored by Anthony Higney, Nick Hanley, and Mirko Moro consolidates findings of 24 studies on the subject. It found that there is substantial evidence linking lead exposure to a heightened risk of criminal behavior, particularly violent crimes. This aligns with earlier research suggesting lead exposure may foster impulsive and aggressive tendencies, potential precursors to violent offenses. The study concluded that, while a correlation between declining lead pollution and declining criminality is supported by research, it is likely not a significant factor in reduced crime rates, and that the link is generally overstated in lead-crime literature.
The studyās implications point towards the potential benefits of reducing lead exposure to decrease crime rates. Such reductions could be achieved through initiatives like removing lead from products like gasoline and paint, water pipes and enhancing lead abatement measures in schools and residences.
I think saying things like that is also meant to be inspiring. Like when you tell all the kids on a hockey team that theyāre great and theyāre gonna kick ass out on the ice, but you know who theyāre about to play and they donāt stand a chance. But who knows, maybe telling them theyāre great will get one or two of them to dream about being a future hockey hero, and theyāll get out on the ice and really kick some ass for once - make that extra pass, hit the net for a shot, or hold off on that big, useless, cross-check to the head that would put them in the sin bin for 5 minutes.
I know that he has to say what he said regardless of if itās true or not. But the problem is that many cops are actual bad guys.
If a third of your hockey team is perfectly capable of playing well but spends the whole game fighting and abusing their spouse, saying 100% of the team is doing great just gives validation to the bad apples.
A right winger I know looked at the stats from the FBI, and his only takeaway was āYeah, but crime is up since 2014. Media just making a fake narrative that only works on leftists.ā
One very interesting aspect of this is that most people do notice if the crime rate is lower in their area, but are still likely to complain that the crime rate is too high generally, even if they donāt see that in their own local community.
I attribute this directly to 24-hour cable news, which tries to grab our attention by telling us how bad everything is. I wonder if any study has tried to correlate the publicās perception of crime to where they get their news.
While perceptions of rising crime at the national level are common, fewer Americans believe crime is up in their own communities. In every Gallup crime survey since the 1990s, Americans have been much less likely to say crime is up in their area than to say the same about crime nationally.
The vast majority of those surveyed ā 68% ā said it was becoming harder for the average person to get ahead, while nearly half of respondents said their own finances were moving in the right direction.
We are cripplingly addicted to myopic sensationalism, and the death of local news means that as information consumers weāre increasingly hypnotized by national news corporations who have no roots or stake in local communities and who thrive on rage bait. Put simply, thereās no localized and tempered source of information that can balance out the neverending national panic.
Violent crime isnāt all crime though. If someone sees discarded needles every day on the street, they arenāt that greatful when you say āat least you werenāt mugged.ā
If you canāt leave packages at your front door, you donāt care as much that there was only 1 drive by shooting in the area.
You wonāt get stabbed on the subway, but you will get a scam call and 3 scam texts on your ride.
Violent crime isnāt the only crime that results in violence either.
Road deaths and injuries are way up and prosecution for killing someone with a car is constantly excused and dismissed even as people get more negligent (screen use) and risky behind the wheel.
That doesnāt really matter when the media knows that the more it reports on lurid crime, the more people pay attention, meaning the more they can charge for advertising.
The consumer of commercial news is not the customer, theyāre the product.
If you were right and people researched things they heard on the news, disinformation wouldnāt spread. And Biden wouldnāt have to say that violent crime is historically low.
I mean I have no idea why you think he would bother saying it if most people researched this stuff.
That wasnāt the topic of discussion. You implied that a majority of people donāt research their views without anything other than anecdotal evidence
You tried to pivot to this other topic, I did not follow it.
I can agree with āat least some people do not properly vet and research their viewsā but I cannot subscribe to āmostā
I specifically mention this point and you make zero effort to correct or modify what youāre saying so Iām left to believe that it is at least partially aligned with what youāre saying.
Feel free to take the easy way out and argue pedantics - our conversation was pretty short so if you actually looked through the convo, I suspect you ignored this point or are purposefully playing on this point to push yourself out of the waters a la pedantic argument.
But it does matter. It matters very much that theyāre voting and behaving based on things that are not actually real. It matters that Bidenās telling the truth, and evidence supports him. Does it mean his message is going to resonate with voters? Probably not. But it goes to the heart of our current predicament to observe that the world that exists in peopleās heads doesnāt resemble the one they actually live in. We are in a self-fulfilling doom loop.
If we grant that crime is down but that Biden should act like it isnāt down because people think itās up, then weāre venturing off into a very dark wilderness where nothing is true and facts no longer matter. Thatās a world where people like Trump thrive.
I'm traveling to NYC in a few weeks with my family. My parents are shocked to hear we are using the subway. I told them not to worry, I left the cat to them in my will.
Maybe. But, Iāve filed several police reports in the past couple years. Things like car break-ins, firearm brandishing on the freeway, package theft with enough info to easily catch them, etc. no one ever calls back. Itās a good thing I donāt need āgodā to be good haha.
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