St. Louis ranks high for gun fatalities among youths (3 times+ national average)

[onehandle]

Source: St. Louis Today

Youths in the city are killed by gun violence more often than in any other city except New Orleans, according to federal data released Thursday.

The city's gunshot murder rate for 10- to 19-year-olds is more than three times the average for major cities, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 46 St. Louis residents ages 10-19 killed by gunshots in 2006 and 2007, for a rate of 50 deaths per 100,000 population in that age group. New Orleans' rate was 106 per 100,000, and the average for major cities was 15 per 100,000.

Oakland, Calif., Newark, N.J., and Baltimore also ranked in the top five in youth gunshot murder rates.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/68047543-30a7-50ec-94d6-79e71b8f29b9.html

---

What cities need are more guns.

[sharesunited]

1. Such a tragedy. But STILL worth the peace of mind which comes from easy access.

Now carry on dying and pursuing happiness.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HERVEPA]

3. Clearly an obvious argument for more guns in our society.

If those 10 year olds had guns, they could have defended thenselves.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hack89]

27. Clearly an argument for less crime

why don't we take care of the real problem?

[cleanhippie]

28. Clearly not, considering your inability to see what is is an actual argument FOR.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[petronius]

8. And quality education systems, and employment opportunities, and

safe social/recreational facilities...

[Starboard Tack]

10. How would you propose better reinforcement of those laws?

Do you see a problem? If so, do you have a solution beyond telling LE to do a better job?

[slackmaster]

11. End the revolving-door justice system that lets too many violent criminals go free

If one were to look at the details of those shootings, I'd bet that most of them would turn out to have been done by people who already had criminal records.

[Starboard Tack]

12. How does that help kids?

They are so young that many never get to the door before they kill or are killed. Or do you want to throw away the key on a 12 year old gang banger, send him to gladiator school and hope he comes out in 10+ years as a fine, upstanding citizen raring to continue his quest for the American Dream?

"End revolving-door justice" is way simplistic. How? Who's going to pay to warehouse more inmates? The US already has the highest prison population in the developed world.

[slackmaster]

14. I'm talking about the murderers, not the victims

You lock up the CRIMINALS.

Or do you want to throw away the key on a 12 year old gang banger, send him to gladiator school and hope he comes out in 10+ years as a fine, upstanding citizen raring to continue his quest for the American Dream?

No, I'd take the 12-year-old gang banger and lock him up for 40 years so he comes out a broken senior citizen.

Who's going to pay to warehouse more inmates?

The taxpayers. We can offset the cost by ending the War On (some) Drugs and releasing non-violent offenders.

[Starboard Tack]

18. Well, I'll go along with your second answer

but locking up a 12 year old for 40 years seems a tad steep. How about a 9 year old? Do you draw a line at any age?

[slackmaster]

19. Violent criminals need to be taken out of circulation

I don't care what age they are when they commit a violent crime. (Or read that as I have no automatic empathy for someone for being a child, if you wish.)

[PavePusher]

15. Jails are cheap...

Tents, lots of barbed wire, and a mine-field, if required.

About the only thing Sheriff Arpaio has right.

If it's good enough for troops in the field (and I've oft wished I had even that much luxury), then it's good enough for prisoners.

[gejohnston]

22. and your plan to

scapegoat sportshooters or CCW holders is doing a lot? Here is the basic reality, if you smoke pot or snort coke, you helped them buy the gun. Either stop supporting them by either growing your own or legalize the stuff will do more. Take away their money and they will be back to switchblades and tire chains.

[TheWraith]

21. End the war on drugs, which creates and funds criminal organizations.

Much of the violence in the US is by and from gang wars to control the drug trade.

Eliminate the gangs' supply of desperate potential footsoldiers by providing good quality jobs with a future.

[gejohnston]

23. more like telling the DA to keep taking the easy way out

[jpak]

6. I think every male over 18 in every major city should be issued a Glock and 5 boxes of ammo

that would fix the crime rate

yup!

[ileus]

7. 5 boxes? It takes at least 500 round to break in a pistol before you can trust your life with it.

That would be 10 boxes of FMJ's then a couple of boxes of hollow points to assure reliable function.


Then you have to get good at shooting the weapon so another 1000 round to get comfortable with the pistol....


And finally training, training, training with your life saving device to assure proper technique.

[jpak]

20. That was a joke

thanks for playing

:rofl:

[eqfan592]

25. You were the joke, actually...

...because he just underscored your massive ignorance on the subject of firearms. Given that you are attempting to comment on the issue on a regular basis, this sort of thing is something you should be trying to avoid, not invite. :P

[gejohnston]

24. can you make it retro active and include hicks like me?

But I'll take a Ruger or CZ thank you very much.

[RSillsbee]

31. Can I have an XD instead? NT

[Starboard Tack]

9. Damn kids nowadays. That's how they solve their problems?

Surely they're not thinking "Well every other muthafucka in America is toting, so why shouldn't I?"

Oh, but they're not old enough! Right, and they don't smoke drink or do drugs either. What great role models they have.

And the band played on. Glub! Glub! Glub!

[one-eyed fat man]

29. DOJ study done in the Nineties

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/urdel.pdf

"Adolescent ownership and use of firearms is a growing concern, and results
from the Rochester study suggest the concern is well founded.

By the ninth and tenth grades, more boys own illegal guns (7 percent) than own legal guns (3 percent). Of the boys who own illegal guns, about half of the whites and African-Americans and nearly 90 percent of the Hispanics carry them on a regular basis.

Figure 13 shows a very strong relationship between owning illegal guns and
delinquency and drug use.

Seventy-four percent of the illegal gunowners commit street crimes, 24 percent commit gun crimes, and 41 percent use drugs.

Boys who own legal firearms, however, have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than none-owners of guns.

The socialization into gun ownership is also vastly different for legal and illegal gunowners. Those who own legal guns have fathers who own guns for sport and hunting.

On the other hand, those who own illegal guns have friends who own llegal guns and are far more likely to be gang members.

For legal gunowners,socialization appears to take place in the family; for illegal gunowners, it appears to take place 'on the street.'"

[GreenStormCloud]

13. Gangmembers shooting each other and also innocent people.

This well illustrates the need for law-abiding people to be able to protect themselves from criminals.

[Surf Fishing Guru]

16. What cities need

Is effective crime fighting.

The thought that gun control laws can effect change is, well, let's just call it idealistic and try to be kind.

Here's what St Louis Police Chief Dan Isom says:

"We worked on a gun violence project with PERF in one of the most violent areas of St. Louis, a neighborhood called Wells-Goodfellow. Like many of the other chiefs have said, the victims had rap sheets just as long as the suspects’.

One thing we have to be aware of to give context to this whole problem is that we are looking at an urban problem. It’s much less a suburban or rural problem. It really affects young minorities — Hispanic and black males. I think that the suspects devalue life, the victims devalue life, and the system also devalues life.

When you look at the shooting victims and suspects in these neighborhoods, you see 20 or 30 felony arrests, with eight convictions. Often the convictions don’t result in any jail time at all; they’re getting probation on top of probation. This has caused a lot of us in cities to move
toward federal prosecution, because we know on the state level it’s a hit-and-miss prospect: they’re arrested, they’re convicted, and they come out multiple times.

In Missouri, there’s a type of probation people can receive, and it has made it very difficult for us to establish a person as a convicted felon. I’ve heard other chiefs talking about the fact that a weapons charge in their state is only a misdemeanor offense. But in St. Louis, a weapons violation can turn out to be no offense at all. An individual will get arrested for a weapons charge, which is a felony, and often they plead to that case and get an SIS—a suspended imposition of sentence. It means that if you serve out your probation, which everybody does, that conviction is erased. So if you’re arrested again with another weapon, you don’t have a conviction on your record, so you’re not a felon in possession of a weapon. If you continue to get multiple SISs, you never become a convicted felon. These offenders will often show up for other crimes, and if they never have a conviction, then you’re never able to put stiffer charges on them."

Hug-a-thug prosecutors and judges only worrying about their clearance rate and their docket are the facilitators of gun crime.

[spin]

30. Good post. Welcome to DU (n/t)

[-..__...]

17. "What cities need are more guns".

What they need are more prison cells.

[cleanhippie]

26. No, what cities need are less gang violence.

But you know that. You know that most, if not all, of these incidents are gang related. You know that your comment to your post was disingenuous nonsense.

[one-eyed fat man]

32. Odd you should avoid mentioning

from another DOJ study:

"...it appears that youth who are poorly supervised by their parents and who associate with delinquent peers have higher rates of delinquency and drug use..."

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/urdel.pdf