Published 11:14am EDT, Friday, July 24, 2020

The major causes of violent crime in large American cities are:

1. Easy availability of firearms to civilian population There are 393 million civilian-owned firearms, 30 percent of Americans personally own a gun; 49 percent of Americans report living in a gun household. It is unimaginable that the framers of the Constitution would have intended the Second Amendment to protect a claimed right to own a firearm. If a citizen militia were sufficient to guarantee national security in todays world, why do we sustain a permanent national defense military establishment with the weaponry it has today? Just call out the Minutemen.

2. Inequality in the exercise of police power Policing is a demanding job. Hiring qualifications and training need an overhaul. Biases by race, ethnicity, and wealth must be eliminated.

3. The system by which we reward by income and respect various occupations is crazy. The pandemic shows that one good nurse or one good janitor has more social value than a superb athlete or a successful hedge fund manager or lobbyist, a free labor market be damned.

4. A popular culture which exalts violence as a means of problem solving.

5. Donald J. Trump has made a mockery of the claim that no one is above the law. Who believes that? Our judicial system is failing.

6. The failure to provide an adequate social safety net including: universal, comprehensive, affordable health care and child care for parents who work.

7. Personal responsibility. We need it from people taking to the beaches. We are getting it from vast numbers of people who are exhausting themselves even risking their lives in serving others and caring for their own families. Lets be realistic about what we can ask of them. Lets support them and lets stop hammering them with sanctimonious comments about the need to prod them with punitive incentives.

Daniel C. Hudson

Ridgefield

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Letter: Why theres crime in large cities - Danbury News Times