Free Republic

Mexico City And Washington, D.C., Are About Equally Safe Mexico’s travel industry has been hurting, as crime waves have swept the country and scared tourists away. But is traveling in Mexico any less safe than traveling in the United States? It depends on where you go and what you do, of course. But if you compare tourist destinations in both places, you might conclude you’re better off heading to Mexico. Take Orlando, Florida, home of Disney World. There were 7.5 murders per 100,000 residents there in 2010. Cancun, on the other hand, saw 1.83 murders per 100,000 residents, and...

Someone stopped by searching for “why are white people terrified of minorities?” Good question – If I thought “white people” were actually terrified of minorities, and if I just had a socially acceptable answer to support that belief. So let me scratch my head and walk around that one, while I search for an answer – and a suggested solution should the premise prove viable. Of course, if the surmise is correct, the problem is called xenophobia, “stranger fear” in ancient Greek. Having seen many competent minorities of all varieties gladly accepted both socially and professionally by whites, I cannot...

Someone stopped by searching for “percent of people who will commit murder.” That varies widely between societies, and within the same society depending on conditions. In particular, the incidence of murder declines as the population ages, so an older population will have a much lower murder rate. And while I could load this post up with graphics, I see little point since murder rates vary so widely between societies. And that being the case, the best I can do is to give the maximum and minimum – and the percentage for the United States. The major factors involved in murder...

One of the most obnoxious liberal talking points on guns involves the idea that guns, in and of themselves, cause gun violence. Apparently, as this argument goes, guns or “gun culture” cause law-abiding citizens to transform into murderous nuts. In other words, more guns must mean more gun violence. The argument was famously made by sports writer Jason Whitlock and forwarded by Bob Costas on Sunday Night Football after a player reportedly murdered his girlfriend and killed himself. … According to the latest Small Arms Survey conducted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the U.S. tops the...

Dear Mr. Obama, This week Hadiya Pendleton was shot and murdered in Chicago just days after performing with high school marching band at your second inauguration. She was a majorette in addition to playing volleyball and being an honor student at King College Prep High School. My plea to you is you attend her funeral. My plea is that after the funeral you address the entire nation in prime time and discuss an epidemic that's eroding our nation and destroying millions of dreams. That is the real epidemic of violence in black communities There is no better example than your...

Forget Wal-Mart and skip your local gun show. The murderers of tomorrow will not be found wearing orange vests at your local sporting goods store. They won’t have NRA memberships or trophies on their walls. You won’t find them in America. Look for them in Obamerica. 67% of firearm murders took place in the country’s 50 largest metro areas. The 62 cities in those metro areas have a firearm murder rate of 9.7, more than twice the national average. Among teenagers the firearm murder rate is 14.6 or almost three times the national average. Those are the crowded cities of...

Shortly after Hugo Chávez won his first election as Venezuelan president in December 1998, a lawyer from the western state of Barinas, which was then governed by Chávez's father, delivered a prescient warning to Newsweek magazine: "Venezuelans are dreaming of a savior, but Chávez is a dictator. People don't know what they are getting."  More than 14 years later, a cancer-stricken Chávez is reportedly near death, but his autocratic legacy is very much alive. Venezuela long ago ceased to be a real democracy: The ruling regime effectively controls the Supreme Court (which in 2004 was expanded and packed with Chávez allies), the National Assembly...

There are no gun shops in Chicago, so they say, but murders are on pace to hit 730 for 2013. Guns are usually the weapons that the killers choose to use.Two teenage boys were murdered over the weekend, and guns were the weapons used by the killers. One victim, 14-year-old Rey Dorantes, was reportedly shot while sitting on the front porch of his home. Fifteen-year-old Victor Vega was reportedly walking with another male when they were approached by an armed man who opened fire, killing Vega. In separate incidents, four other people were wounded via gunfire, and all but...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Every Saturday morning, one of my taxi drivers pays about $12 for the right to park his cab near a hospital, about two blocks from a police station. But it's not the government that's charging. An unidentified man pulls up in a large SUV, usually brandishing an AK-47, and accepts an envelope of cash without saying a word. Jose and nine other drivers who pay the extortionists estimate that it amounts to more than $500 a year to park on public property. During Christmas, the cabbies dish out another $500 each in holiday "bonuses." Meanwhile, Jose pays...

Listening to the latest media chatter, one could get the impression that murder in the US is historically bad and getting worse. As the Reverend Al Sharpton put it, "The time for their talk is over. Now's the time for action, and real change on gun control."Actually, now would seem to be a very bad time for such action. The reason is simple: the murder rate is historically low and is already trending downward. In fact, the murder rate in 2011 was the lowest since 1961: 4.7 murders per 100,000 people. In only 5 years since 1910 has it...

... there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe. By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

By: David Harsanyi  Follow @DavidHarsanyi7/20/2012 03:46 PMRESIZE: AAA Print Listening to the crush of media coverage and the sickening politicization of the murders in Colorado, we should not let it escape our attention that despite all the violence and sadness brought on by this event — I lived in Denver for years, and I’ve taken my children to the Aurora theater, so I get it — most of us live in a far safer place than our parents.All day, I've watched television pundits talk about the country as if we were saturated in non-stop violence. The simple fact is...

Black-on-black crime is a sensitive subject in this increasingly polarized nation. While covered in academia and occasionally addressed by talking heads on television, some believe it rarely, if ever, receives the type and depth of attention it deserves. Instead, critics argue that this national tragedy is usually swept under the rug by powerful interest groups and individuals more concerned with elevating their own racially-driven agendas than addressing the real issues at hand. The Trayvon Martin case is only the most recent example of this grim hypocrisy. Indeed, statistics support a very different narrative than the one usually offered by “race...

The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month by a neighborhood-watch volunteer was a sickening and — unless new facts come to light — unjustified loss of an innocent life. Unless Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, had reason to believe that Martin was armed, shooting him was a grossly disproportionate response to a fistfight, even leaving aside the fact that Zimmerman had initiated the encounter. If such a shooting is justified under Florida’s broad self-defense law, that law has licensed violence that goes far beyond legitimate self-defense. Every American shares the despair of Martin’s family over this heartbreaking tragedy...

With Chicago suffering a 35 percent spike in murders this year, police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a reshuffling of his command staff Friday, replacing commanders in five of the city’s 23 districts. McCarthy also promoted three supervisors to deputy chief positions. McCarthy said the changes were made to “strengthen the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce violence” and create a “more efficient departmental structure.

A Venezuelan campaign group says the country has suffered a record number of murders in 2011. The Venezuela Violence Observatory says at least 19,336 people have been killed this year, an average of 53 a day. The figures suggest Venezuela's murder rate is the highest in South America and four times that of Mexico. Criminal violence is set to be a major issue in next year's elections, when President Hugo Chavez is seeking another term in office. "We must inform the nation that 2011 will end as the the most violent year in the nation's history," the Venezuela Violence Observatory...

A rampage by gun-slinging youths through New York's Times Square this week underscored a surge in murders and shootings that has some New Yorkers fearing a return to the city's dark past. The European-style pedestrian zones, bicycle lanes and flower pots of Times Square epitomize Mayor Michael Bloomberg's clean and tourist-friendly Big Apple.

Pals heading home from a Midtown nightclub yesterday tossed their trash out a subway door, setting off a senseless slashing rampage that left two of them dead -- and added to the explosive spike in homicides around the city. The carnage erupted at around 5 a.m., shortly after the 10 Brooklyn friends -- who had been at the trendy Cellar Bar in the Bryant Park Hotel -- boarded a southbound No. 2 train at 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, police said. One of the men had a bag of trash and tossed it out the door as the train stopped...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Three men were fatally shot. One man was fatally stabbed. Police shot one man and at least seven other people were wounded by gunfire -- including an 8-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom -- during an especially violent six hours late Wednesday and early Thursday mainly on the South and West Sides.

Shootings claimed the lives of six men in the city over the weekend. The first shooting happened around 8:20 p.m. Friday, when Tijuan Edwards, 18, was talking to a 25-year-old man in the street at 1916 S. Trumbull Ave. when multiple gunmen approached on foot and shot both men. Edwards was dead on the scene, and the 25-year-old was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with gunshot wounds to the left arm, chin and thigh, police said.