On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 7:49:10 PM UTC-5, AlleyCat wrote:
Looks like the fat right wing gunloon crimefighters have lost the

battle for America's streets and are now holed up in their shotgun

shacks eating ramen noodles and masturbating to More Guns, Less Crime -

Lies and Fabrications Unable To Withstand The Test Of Peer Review, Buy

Discredited Gun Industry Lacky John Lott Jr. Maybe they should pray

to their fiction Jesus on a Stick who lives in the sky!



US facing wave of murders and gun violence



By Jason SzepSun Aug 20, 10:27 AM ET



Analicia Perry was kneeling to light a candle at a makeshift

shrine to her brother when she was shot in the face and

killed -- four years to the day after her brother was gunned

down on the same spot.



The slaying of the 20-year-old mother -- on a narrow street

behind a police station in Boston's poor Roxbury district

last month -- is one of the shocking examples of a rise in

the murder rate across the United States that is raising

questions about whether police are fighting terrorism at the

expense of crime.



In a shift from trends of the past decade, violent crime is

on the rise, fueling criticism of Bush administration

policies as a wave of murders and shootings hits smaller

cities and states with little experience with serious urban

violence.



From Kansas City, Missouri, to Indianapolis, Indiana, places

that rarely attract notice on annual FBI crime surveys are

seeing significant increases in murder. Boston, once a model

city in America's battle against gun violence, is poised to

eclipse last year's homicide tally, which was the worst in a

decade.



Explanations vary -- from softer gun laws to budget cuts,

fewer police on the beat, more people in poverty and simple

complacency. But many blame a national preoccupation with

potential threats from abroad.



"Since September 11, much of the resources that were

distributed to crime- fighting efforts in Boston and other

major cities were redistributed to fight terrorism," said

Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and

Conflict at Northeastern University.



"The feds had supported after-school programs. They had

supported placing more police officers in crime hot spots in

major cities. These federal efforts were reduced," he said.



VIOLENT CRIMES INCREASE



A 2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation crime report, issued

last month, showed violent crime increasing for the first

time in four years in 2005, up 2.5 percent from the year

before, with medium-size cities and the Midwest leading the

way.



While New York, Los Angeles and Miami still are enjoying

drops in crime, smaller cities with populations of more than

500,000 are raising the alarm, posting an 8.3 percent rise in

violent crime in 2005. Nationwide, the murder rate rose 5

percent -- the biggest rise in a single year since 1991.



After dramatic declines in murder rates in the 1990s, some

cities dropped programs that emphasized prevention and

controls on the spread of guns, often citing budget cuts.



"The Bush administration has scaled back funding for federal

cops program," said Jens Ludwig, a criminal justice expert at

Georgetown University. "From 1993 to 2000 we saw an

impressive run-up in the number of law enforcement people

patrolling against crime. That has really slowed down."



Of the 57 murders in Kansas City this year, 45 involved guns.

"When things start getting out of control, people start

shooting," said police Capt. Richard Lockhart.



Police in Indianapolis are clocking overtime after a dozen

shootings in less than a week at the start of August that

began with a cab driver gunned down. The city has had 71

murders this year, up from 51 a year ago.



WASHINGTON'S CRIME EMERGENCY



The police chief in Washington, D.C., declared a crime

emergency in July following the murder of a British political

activist in the exclusive Georgetown neighborhood and a spate

of attacks on tourists on the National Mall.



Several Midwest cities are on pace for a rise in murders this

year, including Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio and Memphis,

Tennessee.



"It isn't gang or drug violence, it's just people getting

violent," said Mark Williams, an assistant district attorney

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "A lot of them are minor

disagreements and people using guns to settle them."



From the expiration of a federal ban on assault rifles to

tougher restrictions on databases that identify gun owners,

gun laws have weakened in the past five years, said Daniel

Vice, an attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Handgun

Violence.



"The top five states with the highest gun death rates are

five states with incredibly weak gun laws," he said, listing

Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico and Wyoming.



In Miami, while overall crime is down, the use of

semi-automatic weapons is growing.



"These things are dirt cheap," Police Chief John Timoney told

Reuters, estimating the street price at $250 each. "We have

seen these assault weapons being used time and time again by

drug gangs."



(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami, Andrew Stern

in Chicago and Andy Sullivan in Washing
alt.test is to your right, shape up.