Editor,
John Marty’s letter in the Sept. 8 San Mateo Daily Journal takes President Biden to task for his speech where he pointed out the danger of the MAGA GOP. Marty notes “The only place in the world where, by policy, violence and chaos are encouraged are in Democrat-run cities in the United States.” Easy enough to check with Google ... oh dear, it sure doesn’t look that way to me. Here are the 17 highest violent crime rates per 100,000 population:
DC 999.8, Alaska 837.8, New Mexico 778.3, Tennessee 672.7, Arkansas 671.9, Arizona 654.8, Louisiana 639.4, Missouri 542.7, South Carolina 530.7, South Dakota 501.4, Michigan 478.0, Montana 469.8, Nevada 460.3, Oklahoma 458.6, Alabama 453.6, Texas 446.5, and California 442.0.
Please, Mr. Marty, can you explain why 11 of these deep red states have such huge crime rates…worse even than “Democrat-run” California if it has nothing to do with the politics of the Republicans in office?
Larry Kistler
Belmont
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(13) comments
Oh, that’s so typical, Mr. Kistler! They just toss out something that sounds good in their mind, which is immediately gobbled up with delight by the cult, then repeated ad nauseum. It remains as gospel, until someone more truth oriented does some research, like you did, except that it may be beyond understanding by many cult members, or just conveniently ignored.
Media literacy and critical thinking are subjects we could all use some training on, and, should be required learning for middle school through college. When I encounter something in a newspaper, magazine, on the radio or TV that stirs some emotion like anger or fear, I've learned to step back and ask myself "who is the source" and then if it feels important to me, I dig in and do some research. Finding myself nodding my head in absolute agreement with something also triggers a "wait a minute" response, especially if I'm about to share it on Facebook or Twitter. While Snopes and Politifact and Wikipedia are good first stops on a hunting trip, I don't rely on them without checking their sources. I'm sure someone will jump in and say that it is a luxury to have the time to do the digging and they'd be right. I'd encourage those that don't have the time to either carefully look for the truth to avoid spreading information that is questionable at best or false at worst, or step away from the keyboard and mouse before clicking "post."
Marty's LTE mentioned "cities" and you give us stats for states. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Well said, willallen. I’m sure if we drill down to cities, especially cities in “red” states, we will see some, if not many, have “blue” mayors and it is their indifference to crime that increases the overall crime rate in “red” states. Providing statistics so folks can cherry pick for a comparison.
Will, I had the same reaction. Doing common searches on the highest crime rates or most dangerous et al, I found the cities rather equally divided between red and blue. But, it was good of Marty to call out the right on their hypocrisy on crime.
Correction: meant Larry rather than Marty on call out....
Hello, Rel
I also had the same reaction concerning Will pointing out that John commented on crime in cities and Larry zeroed in on crime rates for states.
My understanding is typically cities with the highest crime rates are also the cities with the highest crime volume... but I could be wrong. Could you provide some context for your common searches "on the highest crime rates or most dangerous et al" that found "cities rather equally divided between red and blue"?
Well Mr. Fowler, methinks Rel is smarter than the average bear. He knows to stop digging.
Rel,
I searched with three different web browsers and search engines using the exact same inquiry. I got three different answers, none of which led to your conclusion. Care to share your source?
Let's not forget that their are lies, darn lies and statistics. If the LTE writer had dug a little deeper, he would have had to realize that the crime rates by state color those for the state's cities. The highest crime rates are in large cities run by our venerated leftists such as in Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, and so on. Therefore, crime rate statistics by state are meaningless if one has to live in one of those deplorable cities. I am sure the citizens of Chicago feel great about the low crime rate in Illinois.
Hey, Dirk
You make a good point. John Marty commented on crime in cities and Larry Kistler responded with crime data for states. While it makes sense we should find more crime in places with a larger accumulation of people, Larry has suggested that Republican states have worse crime than Democratic Party cities. In his LTE, he asks John to explain why. In my view, Larry’s suggestion is flawed, and you have told us why. The red states on Larry’s list include a significant number of folks in urban areas who lean left. It’s that simple.
Let's examine the top seven states on Larry’s list. In those states, we will find 15 counties comprised of large cities with blue populations that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Those 15 counties voted the Democratic Party ticket and they make up 38% of the total population of those seven “red” states. Yet, Larry suggests the crimes in those seven states are strictly associated with Republicans. Work down Larry’s list… the top five most populous counties in Texas voted the Democratic Party ticket in 2020. Those counties make up 43% of Texas’ total population. Still, Larry would have us believe that crime in red states like Texas should be laid at the feet of Republicans.
To be fair to everyone in this discussion, the FBI does not use any one demographic marker to explain crime. However, population density is one of the variables the FBI looks at when crunching crime stats. Yes, we can expect to see more crime in heavily populated areas, but the question then becomes… what is causing that crime? The FBI also looks at factors like poverty, education, race, family cohesiveness, and age. We see a lot of crime in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Detroit, and St. Louis. Those cities have been controlled by Democratic Party politicians for a long, long time. Why are those politicians not addressing fairly obvious causal factors? Maybe that was John’s point about crime in large cities.
Since January 1, 2022, there have at least 2500 people shot in Chicago… another Democratic Party controlled city. More than 450 of them died. Of those killed, 8 were children under the age of twelve, and 34 were teenagers. Sadly, the numbers will only get worse as there are three and a half months left in this year. Chicago’s population is about the same as the three least populated red states: Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota. Last year, there were 665 homicides in Chicago… 110 in Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota combined.
Larry?
Ray - thanks for drilling down to counties in “red” states. I’d also recommend folks take a look at the Major Cities Chiefs Association site and their quarterly MCCA crime reports that highlight violent crime from major agencies across the USA and Canada. If anyone has the time, they can cross reference these cities with cities controlled by Democrat mayors. I’m sure we’ll see the correlation that Ray has so thoughtfully provided. I’m also sure we’ll see rising crime rates in Democrat-run cities, as Mr. Marty stated. Those darn statistics.
Bingo.
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