> if all you're looking at are homicide stats you really need to think about how those are affected by technological changes which greatly increase lethality.
Funnily enough, academic work suggests the exact opposite, that the homicide rate in this country could be 5x higher were it not for advancements in trauma care[0]. Inner-city hospitals are applying battlefield medicine techniques and saving lives, turning homicides into aggravated assaults.
> we have a lot of unhappy people buying, and economically marginalized young people
The state of West Virginia, which has more guns and a higher share of unhappy, economically marginalized young people than Virginia, has a lower homicide rate than its eastern neighbor.
Ultimately, we likely disagree on "the root cause of crime", as it were. I don't believe that more aid for the poor or reducing income inequality will materially reduce violent crime rates, because by and large people do not commit violent crime in order to escape poverty. Instead, people are poor for a lot of the same reasons that they commit crime: they have poor impulse control, high time preference, and little consideration for those around them. We have not yet figured out a way to apply money to people in such a way to change these undesirable behavioral patterns, so I am against spending more of the taxpayer's money in this fruitless endeavor. The ways that do work have fallen out of favor in society.
I believe what will make a material impact is lengthier sentences and more pretrial detention; that is, policy must favor the rights of the law-abiding majority over the rights of repeat criminals.
Funnily enough, academic work suggests the exact opposite, that the homicide rate in this country could be 5x higher were it not for advancements in trauma care[0]. Inner-city hospitals are applying battlefield medicine techniques and saving lives, turning homicides into aggravated assaults.
> we have a lot of unhappy people buying, and economically marginalized young people
The state of West Virginia, which has more guns and a higher share of unhappy, economically marginalized young people than Virginia, has a lower homicide rate than its eastern neighbor.
Ultimately, we likely disagree on "the root cause of crime", as it were. I don't believe that more aid for the poor or reducing income inequality will materially reduce violent crime rates, because by and large people do not commit violent crime in order to escape poverty. Instead, people are poor for a lot of the same reasons that they commit crime: they have poor impulse control, high time preference, and little consideration for those around them. We have not yet figured out a way to apply money to people in such a way to change these undesirable behavioral patterns, so I am against spending more of the taxpayer's money in this fruitless endeavor. The ways that do work have fallen out of favor in society.
I believe what will make a material impact is lengthier sentences and more pretrial detention; that is, policy must favor the rights of the law-abiding majority over the rights of repeat criminals.
[0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1124155/