While I agree with your point about guns I think there is more at work here. I know 4 people (including Mrs. Mad) this year who have had a robbery committed against them. Since none were violent they simply did not report them to the police because it is such a time waster and generally a pain in the a$$. In addition the militarization of the police makes it so that every time you go to a police station you are treated like a criminal. Even victims are view as hiding something. Now, I go along way around to avoid any contact with the cops. I do not like being interrogated when I am the victim.
Sounds like municipalities, town meetings, and city councils need to reign in these militarized cops.
Since cops are local, we don’t really have much excuse to not speak up at our town meetings.
I think you express some very real concerns, but they don’t explain the crime data. Crimes are down the most sharply for the crime categories which must be reported: murder/non-negligent homicide and vehicle theft.
I agree. I avoid the ever higher social spiral downwards of the Cop Tribe. Not to mention the usual repellent bureaucracy.
I live in, and amongst uber white, upper income, leafy antique towns. Walking into a station is like walking into a prison. Absent surly desk Sgt, counting the years to retirement. Forms slid through two inches of plexi. Total disinterest if not annoyance of a ‘civilian’ entering the inordinantly large Security Apparatchiks perimeter.