Take Back The Streets

Looks like some of the people in Detroit have figured out that fancy words and empty platitudes are not reducing the crime but armed citizens are. What is unusual about this article is that Detroit Police Chief James Craig is giving some of the credit to armed citizen.

Detroit police chief gives credit to armed citizens for drop in crime

Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than during the same period last year, 22 percent fewer break-ins of businesses and homes, and 30 percent fewer carjackings. Craig attributed the drop to better police work and criminals being reluctant to prey on citizens who may be carrying guns

Time to give an armed citizenry a chance.

The Decline and Fall of Detroit

Google and Bing street views form 2008 and 2009 through 2013 demonstrate just how had things are Detroit.

GooBing Detroit

It is saddening really. I can remember how in 1969 I was so proud that American technology put men on the moon and brought them back. In a mere 66 years we went from Kitty Hawk to Apollo. Now, a mere 45 years later, poor decisions and extractive government policies have left some of our once great cities falling into ruins.

H/T to The Unwanted Blog

Open carry in Carjack City (AKA Detroit).

There are certainly places where concealment of a firearms is a the more polite option -- Chipotle's Grill for example -- but, whenever the open carry versus concealed carry argument comes up, the Internet commandos will always claim a concealed firearm is a "tactical advantage". This is preferred because the bad guy doesn't know you're armed until it is too late. I've always found that argument a little dubious and my inclination is that open carry is a deterrent to an attack happening in the first place.

I know it is not an argument that will be settled anytime soon. Largely, I think, because there are a lot of unspoken assumptions on both sides. However, Greg Champion, a security guard in Detroit where violent carjacking has skyrocketed, offers his own reason for carrying openly.

To avoid becoming a victim, security guard Greg Champion wears a handgun on his hip whenever he's pumping gas.

"I don't want to surprise you," Champion said. "I want you to know I'm armed, and I want you to know I can defend myself, and I want you to go somewhere else."

A man after my own heart: I may not be able to make crime go away but I will try to make it go somewhere else.

Granny Got Her Gun, Then Went to Jail

Report from myfoxdetroit

I am pretty sure there is more to this story than meets the eye. My first impression is that this woman is seriously disturbed but the police did not hold her and did not confiscate her P22. That leads me to suspect that there may be something to her story about harassment and police indifference.

In any case the news report was surprisingly neutral.

Committees of Vigilance in Detroit?

The Daily reports on 911 IS A JOKE.

The people of Detroit are taking no prisoners.

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.

Read the rest here.

Like it or not, violence is a normal human function intimately linked to survival. Like any such natural behavior, the expression of it can be trained but it cannot eliminated without a substantial cost. Whenever a basic human function is repressed, behavioral distortions result.

Every human being has a natural desire to defend itself. By denying the victims of crime a legitmate outlet to that desire, the state creates behavioral distortions. One of these is to form groups (mobs) and track down a malefactor after the fact. In a civilized society where self defense is recognized and robustly supported we get a few dead offenders. Take away that and the results will be vigilantism. We may be seeing the beginning of that in Detroit.

Is the "Showtime Effect" Killing Children?

Latest from William Grigg
The Death of Aiyana Jones: "Showtime Syndrome" Claims a Child

Read it and ponder that over 100 SWAT raids happen everyday in America. One quibble I have with is report is that:

the SRT paramilitaries chose a Fallujah-style "dynamic entry," hurling a flash-bang grenade through a closed window and storming through the front door with guns drawn.

It's only anecdotal but I've been told by some ex-servicemen who were in Fallujah that the tactics being employed by SWAT teams like the one in the Detroit raid would not be be tolerated by the military.

Other than that I think Grigg is dead on with his assessment.