Notice from CBS News regarding violent crime...

Violent crime across the United States surged last year by the largest
margin in 15 years, new FBI statistics show.

Log on to www.cbsnews.com for details.

Do you suppose the FBI is counting the capers of the Repugs in their statistics?

Monkey see, monkey do.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060612/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fbi_violent_crime


WASHINGTON - Murders, robberies and aggravated assaults in the United States increased last year, spurring an overall rise in violent crime for the first time since 2001, according to FBI data.

Murders rose 4.8 percent, meaning there were more than 16,900 victims in 2005. That would be the most since 1998 and the largest percentage increase in 15 years.

<snip>

Criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime, a product of dramatic declines in the 1990s and the abandonment of effective programs that emphasized prevention, putting more police officers on the street and controlling the spread of guns.

"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "Funding for prevention at the federal level and many localities are down and the (National Rifle Association) has renewed strength."

Unless the homicides in question are the result of bayonet charges, then changes in gun laws have nothing to do with it.

IMHO, you can lay the blame squarely on the sagging economy, lack of jobs/health care/mental health care, and their sequelae.

People who are told daily by their leaders to be happy that we killed a bad guy or two start to think that killing the bad guys in their life is te best solution. Violence begets violence. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Insert favorite cliche. A fish rots from the head.

Violence under Reagan and Bush shot through the roof, and it began to fall under Clinton. Funny how Giuliani gets so much credit for cutting the crime rate in New York when NY's crime rate fell about the same as the rest of the nation's during the same time. Attitudes towards violence matter.

And still expect them to be good citizens? A lot of people in a lot of pain just want to hurt somebody.