Seems there’s been a large amount of violence recently.
A guy in Pasadena, TX shot some robbers last month. They’ve been playing the 911 recording on CNN today. (And they said he shot the guys in the back. Bad form!) There’s a thread in The Pit about an eight-year-old girl who took a few rounds for her mother. There were a couple of church shootings. The mall shootings in Kansas.
What’s going on?
There are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. If you could see an actual rap sheet of all the criminals in the entire nation every day, it would look staggering yet the odds are overwhelming that no one you know was affected. The media cherry picks cases like those because they cause mass outrage. They have little bearing on the actual crime rates in the U.S. and the ones you gave as examples are pretty isolated crimes in terms of scope and impact once you strip off the media verbiage.
Gee whiz, you should have seen the dark ages…
Yeah, gun crime was terrible back then… 
Guns? Well when I was a lad all we had were shanks made from bedposts!
You an’ yer newfangled bedposts! Back in my day, we didn’t have any o’ yer bedposts! We hit each other o’er the head with pillows! E’ry summer, it seemed, th’ entire neighborhood would erupt in a frenzy o’ pillowfights. Kids these days, gone totally to pot…
Pillows? You had pillows?!
What kinda deprived childhood did you lead? Did I mention we stuffed our pillows with gravel?
Luxury.
Johnny, I’ve noticed the same thing. Husband and I have a police scanner which we listen to all the time - we’ve noticed a LOT more going on up by us as well - accidents, hit and runs, robberies, shoplifting, all kinds of different crimes, and some you hardly ever hear about the rest of the year are now all cropping up lately - it’s the holidays, I think. We can go ten months without hearing about suicides, we’ve heard about three so far since Thanksgiving.
Yeah, joking aside, there was a murder at my apartment complex a few nights ago, in the building I used to live in. Kid just got stabbed, and they only just caught the perpetrator in Texas (two days’ determined drive from here in Florida to there in Texas). I personally witnessed what looked like a gang fight in the parking lot one morning. Suppose this is what I get for living in a college neighborhood three blocks away from the ghetto, but it was so quiet for the longest time…
Crime does spike a bit during vacations. Spring break, Christmas break, summer vacation — I notice a lot more incidents going on then, including me getting jumped by four muggers one night two summers ago.
I was sort of thinking the same thing the other day, but who knows.
Possible causes:
Just an uptick in the reporting of normal crime level.
Just me paying more attention to the reporting of it, but the level hasn’t changed.
An actual uptick in violent crime
COuld be anything, but there’s been a couple high profile crimes around here, some sentencing for other crimes, some nationwide stuff.
Since when is Omaha in Kansas?
Christmas time
is here
time for guns
and beer
Nebraska. Kansas. What’s the difference?
Which one is Denvers airport in?
Global warming.
What Trunk said.
(Actually, I just didn’t pay much attention to the story since I was away from TV/Radio most of that day and the next day I was out paying for a gun.)
There’s something in the air. It has me carrying regularly. Well, that and I’m packing while I’m still allowed. I understand CCW is hard to get in CA. Open carry is such a trouble magnet. I prefer no one knows but me.
Or Bush. Take your pick.
Seriously, I think it’s the holidays. Rather stressful, dealing with crowds, shopping, family angst…