Bloomberg writer - a call for incrementalism

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KyJim

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"Why Liberal Attacks on Gun Nuts Will Lose a Culture War" -- I was excited about the headline, especially since it came from Bloomberg Business Week --- until I read the article.

After predictably trashing Ted Nugent and Larry Pratt, and agreeing with what "liberal activists" think of them (and most of us), the article makes its point:
What I question is whether the gun-control movement should intermingle calls for modest regulatory changes—limits on ammunition magazine capacity, for example—with engagement in a broader (and ultimately futile) culture war that the likes of Nugent and Pratt relish.
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The author also suggests using the lowered crime rate in NYC as an example of what gun control can do and to use this a debate point. Of course there's also D.C., Chicago, and other major cities to use as a counterpoint. Indeed, the crime rate generally declined across the country.

More fundamentally, there is no proof NYC's gun control policy is the reason, at least not the main one. The crime rate mostly went down during Rudy Giuliani's administration which wasn't gun friendly but wasn't totally bonkers like Bloomberg's. Other possible reasons? IIRC, NYC has the largest ratio of police to population of any major U.S. city. They are under a federal court order because their massive stop and frisk policy was unconstitutional. In most states, until the last three or four years, prison sentences have been longer, especially for repeat offenders. There may be a number of other factors which could account for a decreased crime rate.

Still, I think this may be the announced change in plans for the gun grabbers. Go back to incrementally taking away gun rights until they are mostly gone. It worked for a number of years until gun owners finally began pushing back.
 
The author also suggests using the lowered crime rate in NYC as an example of what gun control can do and to use this a debate point.
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NYC has taken urban policing to the extreme. It's not clear how much of the improved NYC crime rate can be attributed to gun laws, but probably not very much. There have been dramatic changes in crime rates nationally over the last 20 years, and police in some major cities, NYC perhaps most of all, have started using new strategies and tactics to curb or relocate crime.

And what can't be curbed, by tactics that arguably violate the 4th amendment, or displaced (Hello, Newark!), can always be recorded as less serious offenses (though homicides are more difficult to creatively re-categorize, at least when there's a body). (see this NYT article or this policemag article)

Without NYC-style policing strategies, strict gun laws aren't likely to do much except disarm the law-abiding (some of them).

If Phoenix adopted NYC policing, with Arizona gun laws staying the same, do the Bloomberg and Brady mouthpieces honestly believe Phoenix couldn't achieve murder (or any other type of violent crime you want to measure) rate parity with NYC?
 
Surely not the Sullivan Law of 1911.
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That's what I was wondering. Bloomberg didn't sign any significant gun legislation.

I wonder how much of it goes back to Giuliani's efforts on community policing and creative zoning practices.
 
Originally posted by tyme
And what can't be curbed, by tactics that arguably violate the 4th amendment, or displaced (Hello, Newark!), can always be recorded as less serious offenses (though homicides are more difficult to creatively re-categorize, at least when there's a body).
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emphasis added

That is something that I've long wondered about: how many large cities with high violent crime rates get them under control by simply running the criminals out and into other areas for someone else to deal with?

For example, while Chicago still has a horrendous violent crime rate, it isn't as bad as it has been in the past. However, many areas within a couple hours drive from Chicago like Indianapolis, IN and Champaign-Urbana, IL have been experiencing an increasing violent crime rate over the last few years. I've also been told by people who live in or visit Chicago often that the city has undertaken some fairly extensive "renovations" of some notoriously bad neighborhoods over the last few years. All this leads me to wonder if many of the violent criminals from Chicago are being run out and simply setting up shop a few hours down the road.
 
Incrementally your rights will go...

KyJim said:
Go back to incrementally taking away gun rights until they are mostly gone.
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This is the way it has generally been in the U.S. with stripping away your freedoms. I suspect the gradual demolition of gun rights will largely be imposed from the Federal Government. The U.S. Supreme Court barely affirmed the individual right to bear arms even though there is an actual amendment in the Bill of Rights for it. The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't have to overturn the Heller case, just gut it with subsequent anti-gun rulings from the lower court cases and/or by upholding virtually all the gun control garbage the House of Representatives and Senate passes.
 
KyJim said:
Still, I think this may be the announced change in plans for the gun grabbers. Go back to incrementally taking away gun rights until they are mostly gone. It worked for a number of years until gun owners finally began pushing back.
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I don't think they ever abandoned the incremental approach. They continue to cry and wheedle about "common sense" steps that are nothing other than creeping incrementalism ... and as soon as they get one of their "common sense" proposals adopted as law they pronounce that it's "a good first step" (thereby ignoring the fact that it's (a) not a good step, because it has no hope of accomplishing the stated gain, and (b) it's not a first step, because in reality it's about the fifteenth step in a long-term program of creeping incrementalism.
 
One bit of encouragement about these kinds of articles is the usually overwhelming number of replies that are from our side.
There seems to be a distinct absence of support for the guy who wrote it.
Maybe it's true, the anti-gun propagandists don't really have all that much of an audience that agrees with them.
 
The Firearm Fabians have never stopped being incremental, they've known for 50 years they will never get a ban on guns, or confiscation, so just keep on making it tougher and more expensive to own them, bit by bit.
 
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