The purpose is to crack down on America’s most prolific murder-dealers, gun sellers in areas with lax gun legal guidelines that make their money by funneling weapons into main cities the place the gun legal guidelines are tighter. It coincides with a Justice Department announcement last week of 5 “strike forces” particularly concentrating on unlawful weapons trafficking into New York Metropolis, Chicago, and different massive cities.
There have been press exposés of the high-traffic gun sellers chargeable for a big circulate of the weapons utilized in crimes elsewhere; these new bulletins recommend that the Justice Division has a plan for lastly shuttering these outlets. Possibly. Anticipate a complete lot of angst from the pro-gun foyer about how merciless it’s to remove a gun store’s license for serving to simply one identified violent legal get their latest homicide weapon, and the way a requirement that gun outlets comply with the legislation in each transaction, when offering weapons of battle to no matter random twitchy schmuck is available in their doorways, is Going Too Far.
The second of Biden’s main initiatives at present is increasing hiring and housing alternatives for these launched from jail. This contains boosting alternatives within the federal office. The plain purpose of this program is to scale back recidivism by giving newly launched inmates a way of creating a residing that apart from the one that will have landed them in jail to start with; repeated previous research have demonstrated that such applications work effectively.
And the third, in keeping with the Publish‘s preview? Elevated police funding. Once more. $350 billion’s price, to be precise, to be taken from current pandemic stimulus funds for these police jurisdictions dealing with elevated violent crime charges.
Whereas Politico and the Publish each spotlight scary numbers for brand new homicides, with Politico calling it a “killing spree” as a result of that may be a factor the press does, what’s bizarrely lacking from each tales is any context on simply why violent crime is perhaps sharply up whereas nonviolent crime declines, throughout (checks notes) the final 18 months of American life.
Did one thing occur a yr and a half in the past to fully upend society, throw whole sectors of the financial system out of labor, shutter a lot of the technique of leisure trendy Individuals have lengthy relied on to assist alleviate piled-up stress, and toss people collectively into new conditions of uncertainty, isolation, and disaster? Something? Something in any respect?
Oh. Ohhh. Proper. The whole “worldwide pandemic, individuals dying off, all the things is closed, you don’t have any job, no chance of creating hire” nationwide disaster that has now lasted a yr and a half. It looks like that may be price mentioning because the very possible reason behind elevated native violence in lots of American cities, however no.
Undecided how a world pandemic managed to get overlooked of two separate quote-filled tales when discussing elevated ranges of violence over the past yr, since it might appear slightly key to sussing out whether or not such crime is anticipated to stay elevated because the pandemic eases or would possibly abate in coming months, nevertheless it ain’t there. That is … a bit odd? Possibly?
That apart, that the brand new police funding is being taken explicitly from pandemic stimulus funds means that the Biden administration, at the least, believes the 2 issues to be linked. The remainder of Biden’s initiatives are welcome both approach.
