Friday, August 7, 2009

Houston Texas, a Violent City

The Houston Chronicle reports on the grim situation down in the Bayou City.

Houston has a higher rate of violent crime than any other Texas city and ranks among the highest in the nation, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of FBI crime data in the 25 most populous U.S. cities.

The city also has fewer police officers per capita or per square mile than the national average, the analysis shows.

The prediction is obvious.

“There's no doubt that there's going to be a spike in crime as a result of this,” said Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers Union. “We have to learn to work smarter and try to use technology a little bit more, but some hard decisions may have to be made and some other city budgets may have to be looked at. Tough times cause people to have to make tough decisions.”

I remember reading somewhere that in situations like this the police actually encourage private citizens to apply for concealed carry permits in order to help out. What do you think? Is that the solution for Houston?

But, don't the good folks in Texas already have a lot of guns? Aren't they right smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, where guns and Christianity mix? Then why all this violence? What seems to be wrong?

What's your opinion? Would increasing even more the number of guns and CCW holders make things safer? I think that would continue to add fuel to the fire of never-ending violence.

By the way, if one person is a gun owner and staunch believer in the 2nd Amendment and has a certain opinion on this, and another person does not own a gun and believes in gun control and has the opposite opinion, which one do you think is more likely to be biased?

Please feel free to leave a comment.

4 comments:

  1. "Then why all this violence? What seems to be wrong?"

    The same thing that is wrong with every large city these days: Gangs.

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  2. Until you learn to tell the difference between someone committing a crime and someone defending themselves against that crime, I don't believe further conversation is worth my time.

    Oh wait, that's right. You believe self defense is a crime.

    Nevermind.

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  3. Actually I don't believe self defense is a crime. But I question what some people consider legitimate self defense.

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  4. "Actually I don't believe self defense is a crime. But I question what every person considers legitimate self defense. In fact, I can't think of one instance of legitimate civilian self defense. Only highly trained police officers are able to make the tough decision of when self defense is warranted, and even then, they usually get it wrong."

    There, I corrected your statement for you based on the postings you have had. You forgot a couple of words.

    ReplyDelete