PBS: Police Chiefs blame guns
PBS (public broadcasting) judy woodruff interviewed two police chiefs couple nights ago, revealing but I was hardly surprised; excerpts below:
Judy: Chief Flynn, to you first. Milwaukee, an 88% {increase} — in homicides just since last year. What is going on? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/caused-dramatic-tipping-point-deadly-shootings/
EDWARD FLYNN, Chief, Mailwaukee Police Dept: Well, we’re seeing a number of different dynamics playing out. Certainly, one of the things we have seen is a dramatic increase in the use of firearms, particularly semiautomatic pistols, in our violent deaths. We have seen that our shootings are up significantly, our homicides are up dramatically. Over 85% of our homicides are committed with firearms, and, of those, over 85% are committed with semiautomatic pistols.
We have recently passed a ludicrously weak gun law that allowed basically concealed carry permits to be granted to people who meet the statutory definition of career criminals. We have also got a situation where no matter how many times you are arrested for carrying a gun illegally, it remains a misdemeanor, even though a second offense for carrying marijuana can be prosecuted as a felony. So very weak and relatively recent gun laws are certainly a major contributor to our dramatic spike in firearms-related violence.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Chief Dotson, what about in Saint Louis, a 64% increase over last year? Is it all about guns?
COL. SAM DOTSON, Chief, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Dept: I’m seeing exactly the same thing that they’re seeing in Milwaukee, the availability of guns. We have a constitutional amendment in our state that was passed within the last year that makes it an inalienable right to have a gun. We have had courts that have declined to prosecute convicted felons that we arrest with guns. I’m seeing exactly the same thing, high-capacity magazines, a willingness to use the guns, and a judiciary that sometimes doesn’t follow through on the prosecution.
We had research done from a university here. Of about 250 cases of unlawful use of a weapon, over 61% of those cases got probation. That means those people are right back out on the street committing crimes.
Flynn: our firearms law went into effect in November of 2011. And almost immediately, we started to see an increase in the use of pistols. The tie-in to crime in Milwaukee through the use of a pistol in a crime, the biggest single number is under three months. Our firearms are easily bought legally. Ninety percent of the crime guns we seize at the scene of a crime were bought legally and sold legally, because secondary sales don’t require background checks.
It’s not the only variable. It’s significant components to our violence problem here and in other similarly situated cities. But certainly the easy availability of firearms, of large-capacity magazines is resulting in many more bullets being used at our crime scenes and many more guns being used at our crime scenes.
Dotson: the Ferguson effect, and about how some departments may see officers that have a little bit of trepidation when they go into an enforcement situation. We see criminals that have a little feeling of empowerment around the movement that’s going on.
So I think when you layer that in with the availability of guns, the trepidation of police officers and in Saint Louis a little bit now an uptick in the use of heroin, crack cocaine, difficult to find
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