Two Simple Steps to Reduce Gun Violence (That won't be taken)

     Today's news announced that Denver Public Schools would re-introduce armed police presence in the schools. A series of violent incidents prompted the board to do so.

    It is unlikely in today's world that we can ever eliminate violence in our schools. But, we have to ask how it is that for 200 years students went to school and gun violence was almost never present. I taught for seven years in a public high school and always had my deer rifle in my truck during deer season. Many faculty and a good many students did the same thing. No violence. 

    What changed?    

    We did. Right now, too many people (mostly on the left of the political spectrum) value criminal rights and violent students' rights more than they value the lives of our babies. That is a pretty outrageous thing to assert, so let me explain.

    A high percentage of shootings today come from two groups:

• Criminal Offenders
• Disturbed Youth

    I once read that five percent of criminals commit 95 percent of crimes. (My memory may be faulty on the exact numbers, but I am close.) Given that, I have to wonder why we do not address that five percent. The answer lies above. Liberals generally care more about the rights of criminals than they do the lives of our (especially) young people.

    

    Several years ago, I read a news report of a murderer who had been arrested 60+ times, indicted 40+ times and convicted nearly 40 times. He was on the street; he killed.

    

    Why was he on the streets, you might ask? New York, San Francisco and other cities' prosecutor's offices provide part of the answer. You and I provide the rest.

    Prosecutors today do not prosecute. California is basically considering removing criminal penalties for shoplifting. Currently, shoplifting crimes under $950 are handled as misdemeanors. Drive your buggy into the store, load up what you want and leave. No penalties.

    When Guliani and Bratton cracked down on stile jumpers in the New York subway system and prosecuted graffiti artists crime, including violent crime, dropped. They took New York from being one of the most violence, crime-ridden cities in the world to being one of the safest big cities on the planet.

    

    Current practice had ended that, making New York unsafe once again.

    So, to reduce violence take criminals off the streets. No more 20-page rap sheets. Prosecute and jail habitual criminals. That means things like Stop and Frisk and Three Strikes and You Are Out laws need to return. Yes, I know. I man was put away for life without parole for stealing a pizza. Wrong. He was put away for a third felony conviction after two armed bank robberies.

    According the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting  Program 24.6 percent of homicides were committed during commission of another felony crime. CBS News recently reported that 82 percent of property offenders would be re-arrested for new crimes and  71 percent of violent offenders would follow the same trajectory.

    Serious about reducing violence? Prosecute and jail those who have demonstrated they cannot live in civil society. Incarcerate them so our babies can live.

    Another large group of violent offenders are disturbed youth.

    I have cited the Dunedin Health Study, which tracked all babies born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in one year for 50 subsequent years. That study was exhaustive. Some 1,500 studies have mandated from their data. One of the most interesting areas was the area of crime prediction.

    They study found high probability of incarceration in adult life among those children who had poor self-esteem. That finding was wrapped in an environment of poverty, poor education, unemployment, substance abuse, poor environments and social groups and bad childhood experiences.

    It is that last finding that we could, but won't, use to reduce violence in the United States. We could intervene when known childhood factors predict adult crime. Broken families and child abuse, are primary. We could identify children growing up in those circumstances and intervene with counseling and other support.

    But we won't.

    The reason we won't is a fear of "stigmatizing" children who would otherwise grow up to be rock solid citizens. We conveniently ignore the percentage who will grow up to be killers.

    We know we have two large populations that will commit violent crime. In the first, we can prosecute and incarcerate. In the second, we can provide early childhood intervention. Things that will not reduce violence are gun registration, bans on big clips and elimination of scary pistol grip rifles.

    While we tinker at the edges with silly "solutions," our babies die.