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Large U.S. cities that the
rest of the world used to look at in envy are now being transformed into
gang-infested hellholes with skyrocketing crime rates. Cities such as
Chicago, Detroit, Camden, East St. Louis, New Orleans and Oakland were once
bustling with economic activity, but as industry has fled those
communities poverty has exploded and so has criminal activity.Meanwhile, financial problems
have caused all of those cities to significantly reduce their police
forces. Sadly, this same pattern is being repeated in hundreds of
communities all over the nation. The mainstream media loves to focus on
mass shooters such as Adam Lanza, but the reality is that gang violence
is a far greater problem in the United States than mass shooters ever will
be.There are approximately 1.4
million gang members living in America today according to the FBI. That
number has shot up by a
whopping 40 percent just since 2009. There are several factors fueling
this trend. Unemployment among our young people is at an
epidemic level, about one out of every three U.S. children lives in a
homewithout a father, and there are millions of young men who have come
into this country illegally and have no way to legally support themselves
once they arrive in our cities.Gangs provide a support
system, a feeling of “community”, and a sense of purpose for many young
people. Unfortunately, most of these gangs use violence and crime to
achieve their goals, and they are taking over communities all over America.
If your community is not a gang-infested war zone yet, you should consider
yourself to be very fortunate. If nothing is done about this, the violence
and the crime that is fueled by these gangs will continue to spread, and
eventually nearly every single community in the United States will be
affected by it.Let’s take a closer look at
some of the large cities all over America that are degenerating into
gang-infested war zones…
East St. Louis
East St. Louis has a national reputation for being a city that you
want to avoid. The following is from a recent
Bloomberg article about the growing crime in that community…“Dodging open manholes
where thieves had swiped cast-iron covers, Stephen Wigginton drives the
crumbling streets of his hometown, East St. Louis, Illinois, pointing
out new landmarks in Americas most violent city.“Theres the shopping
mall where a police officer was shot in the face, a youth center that
saw a triple homicide in September, and scattered about the city of
27,000 are brightly lit gas stations that serve as magnets for
carjackers, hit-and-run robbers and killers.’Its the Wild West,’
said Wigginton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of
Illinois.”Today, the murder rate in
East St. Louis is
17 times higher than the national average, but financial problems have
forced huge cuts to the police budget. The number of police patrolling the
streets of East St. Louis was reduced by
33 percent between 2008 and 2011. Police in the city admit that they
are
outgunned and outmanned, but there is not much that can be done about
it.
Camden
Camden, New Jersey is another city that has experienced huge cuts
to the police budget. Their
police force shrank by about a third between 2008 and 2011. Today,
Camden is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities in America and
it has a murder rate that is about
ten times higher than New York City.The gangs have a very strong
hold over Camden, and kids kill kids on a regular basis in the city. The
following is a brief excerpt from a recent article about the horrible
violence that is
plaguing Camden“At the vigil last week,
residents prayed that Camden would simply find peace and that the masked
gunman who killed Jewel Manire and Khalil Gibson would be caught.“As it grew darker,
Michael Benjamin stood toward the back of the crowd, his son huddled
even closer now, and shook his head. ‘Ive known at least 45 kids whove
been killed in my lifetime, he said, the boy holding his finger. I
stopped counting in 2004, though.’
Chicago
In recent years there have been
massive cuts to the police budget in Chicago due to financial
difficulties. At the same time, gang activity has dramatically increased in
the city.As a result, Chicago has
become known for murders and violence. The
murder rate in Chicago was about 17 percent higher in 2012 than it was
in 2011, and Chicago is now considered to be “the
deadliest global city“.If you can believe it, the
number of murders in Chicago during 2012 wasroughly equivalent to the number of murders in the entire country of
Japan during 2012.And the primary reason for
all of this violence in Chicago is the gangs. As I have written about
previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to
Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit. It is their job to handle the estimated
100,000 gang members living in the city.Approximately
80 percent of all murders and shootings in the city of Chicago are
gang-related, and as the gangs continue to grow in size the violence in the
city is going to get even worse. If Barack Obama wants to do something
about violence in America, perhaps he should start with his home city.
Detroit
I write a lot about
Detroit, but that is because they are a perfect example of where the
rest of America is headed if something dramatic is not done. Detroit used to
be one of the greatest manufacturing cities the world has ever seen, but
over the past several decades the economic infrastructure of Detroit has
been
gutted and now there is very little industry left in the city.Over half the children in the
city live in poverty and a sense of hopelessness hangs in the air. At the
same time, financial problems have forced the city to lay off huge numbers
of cops. Back in 2005, there were about 4,000 police officers in Detroit.
Today there are only
about 2,500 and another 100 are scheduled to be eliminated from the
force soon.Meanwhile, crime in Detroit
just continues to get even worse. There were
377 homicides in Detroit in 2011. In 2012, that number rose to
411. Things have gotten so bad that even even the Detroit police are
telling people to “enter
Detroit at your own risk“.
New Orleans
New Orleans was a crime-infested city even before Hurricane
Katrina hit it in 2005, but life has never quite been the same since that
time. The gangs have a very strong presence in the city, and there simply
are not enough financial resources to keep crime in check.If New Orleans was considered
to be a separate nation, it would have the2nd highest murder rate on the entire planet. There are some areas of
New Orleans that you simply do not ever want to venture into at night.Meanwhile, the police force
has been such a mess in recent years that the federal government finally
decided to step in. It is hoped that the “reforms” will mean less crime
in New Orleans in future years, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Oakland
Today, there are
626 police officers in Oakland, California. That is about a 25
percent decline from the
837 police officers that were patrolling the streets of Oakland back in
December 2008.Predictably, criminals have
stepped in and have taken advantage of the situation. At one point in 2012,
burglaries in the city of Oakland were up
43 percent over the previous year.If you can believe it,
more than 11,000 homes, cars and businesses were burglarized in Oakland
during 2012. That breaks down to approximately
33 burglaries a day.
Stockton
Police cuts in the city of Stockton, California have been so
severe that the Stockton Police Officers’ Association ran a billboard
advertisement with the
following message at one point: “Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city
in California: Stop laying off cops!”At the same time, crime in
Stockton continues to get even worse. there have been
more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton since the month of April,
and there is no indication that crime in the city is going to slow down any
time soon.So what is the solution?
Should we have everyone turn in their guns?No, that would just make the
problem even worse. The gangs aren’t going to turn in their guns. The
only people who would turn in their guns would be law-abiding citizens.
That would just make them even more vulnerable to the violence and
crime that are starting to spread like wildfire all over the nation.We don’t have a gun problem
in America. What we have is a gang problem.In 2006, the Justice
Departments National Drug Intelligence Center reported that Mexican drug
cartels were actively operating in
50 different U.S. cities. By 2010, that number had risen to
1,286.Many of these gang members
run up long criminal records, but our overcrowded prison systems just keep
releasing them back into the streets. The results of this philosophy have
been predictable. The following is from a recent article byDaniel Greenfield…
“A breakdown of the
Chicago killing fields shows that 83% of those murdered in Chicago last
year had criminal records. In Philly, its 75%. In Milwaukee its 77%
percent. In New Orleans, its 64%. In Baltimore, its 91%. Many were
felons who had served time. And as many as 80% of the homicides were
gang related.“Chicagos problem isnt
guns; its gangs. Gun control efforts in Chicago or any other major city
are doomed because gangs represent organized crime networks which
stretch down to Mexico, and trying to cut off their gun supply will be
as effective as trying to cut off their drug supply.”This is not a time to take
away the ability of law-abiding American families to defend themselves.
Instead, people need to put even more emphasis on self-defense as police
forces all over the country are cut back.Just recently, the city
attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens living there to “lock
their doors and load their guns” because the police force in that city
is being cut back again.And that is good advice. As
the economy
continues to decline and as millions more Americans
fall into poverty, the violence is going to get even worse.What would you do if a
desperate criminal broke into your house and started searching through your
home room by room? That is the horrifying situation that one young mother
down in
Georgia was recently faced with…“She quickly retreated to
an attic crawlspace with the children, but not before she also picked up
her handgun. The burglar, whom police identified as Paul Ali Slater, did
a room-by-room search of the home, and when he reached the attic, she
was ready.“Walton County Sheriff
Joe Chapman told WSBTV: ‘The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at
that time hes staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver.’“She reportedly fired all
six rounds, missing only once. The other shots hit Slater about the face
and neck.“Sheriff Chapman told the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘The guys face down, crying. The woman
told him to stay down or shed shoot again.'”What would have happened if
she had not had any way to defend herself and her children?That is something that we all
need to think about. For the last couple of decades, we have been fortunate
to live in an era of falling crime rates. Unfortunately, that era is now
over. Large cities all over the country are degenerating into gang-infested
war zones, and what we are seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg.After the economy collapses,
millions of people are going to become incredibly desperate and things are
going to get much, much worse than this.
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