After Heller case, D.C. homicides hit lowest number since '64

[DaveM55]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...mber-since-64/

The year is drawing to a close with homicides in the District at a 45-year low, reflecting a national trend that law enforcement officials are attributing to multipronged crime-prevention strategies that include advances in communication and coordination.

With just two days left in the year, according to preliminary numbers from the police department, the District has had 138 homicides compared with 184 at the same time last year, setting up the city to record the lowest number of homicides since 1964, when 132 were reported killed. Metropolitan Police Department officials attribute the decline to a "perfect storm" of crime-fighting strategies, including a new culture of communication within the police department.

"The level of involvement far surpasses anything I've ever seen," said Metropolitan Police Commander Daniel Hickson, a more than 30-year veteran of the department and former homicide detective. "To imagine we're at 138 is unbelievable."

Commander Hickson said the District - known two decades ago as the "murder capital" of the country - has made progress by targeting violent gun offenders and emphasizing community policing and communication among officers.

The result this year has been a drop in violent crime and property crime. The sharpest drop was in homicides, at 25 percent, followed by a 16 percent decline in sexual assaults and a 10 percent decrease in car thefts.

The department has also reported a 75 percent homicide closure rate so far this year and put a lid on violence in the Trinidad neighborhood, ending a spasm of killing in the Northeast Washington neighborhood that grabbed national headlines last year.

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has said that success in closing homicide cases has been in part because of her signature All Hands on Deck initiative during which all officers, including recruits, work patrol shifts over three-day periods.

The District's numbers are part of a downward trend reflected in many other major cities and nationwide.

According to the FBI's uniform crime report, law enforcement agencies across the country experienced a decrease in violent crime for the first six months of 2009 from the same period the year earlier. Violent crime, which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, decreased by 4.4 percent

[FNG19]

Realistically, I doubt Heller played much into it as a direct cause. All kinds of crime numbers are trending downward this year in direct opposition to typical recession trends. According to this article in the Inquirer, Camden saw a 40% decline in its murder rate. NJ, which saw no changes increase in its gun rights through the year as was seen in DC with Heller, also benefitted, IMHO, from a nationwide increase in gun ownership. While I don't have any NICS Check statistics available on a per-state basis, I imagine even gun-hostile NJ and gun-rabid DC saw massive increases this year.

Whether this is causal or correlative, I do not know. I suspect, however, that it is causal. In the last four decades, this is the only recession I'm aware of that accompanied a large upswing in gun ownership. It is generally well-understood that increased legal gun ownership leads to a decrease in crime. Therefore, it's probably safe to suggest that the national trend towards increased gun ownership is at least partially responsible for the negative trend in crime rates. It should also surprise no one that the police are claiming credit for this, but I can't say for certain whether they're doing it to cover for the 800# gorilla in the room or not.

With that said, Heller did much towards helping gun owners in DC (and, by extension, everywhere else). Thanks for posting this article. It was certainly interesting to see!

[Yellowfin]

McDonald will give NJ, NY, MD, et al. a considerable bit of help.

[PocketProtector]

Gun sales way up / crime way down , not just D. C. but Nationwide. How can that be ???? The Libtards can't be wrong. right? But just like Hellthscare, They gonna butt ram us anyway... Try at least.

[rikilii]

McDonald will give NJ, NY, MD, et al. a considerable bit of help.

It's unlikely to have any affect in those jurisdictions, because it's legal to own handguns in all of them.

[stephpd]

With the last few years being record breakers for a bunch of cities it was just a matter of time before the rates came down. Maybe a coincidence with Heller and that the gun run at the beginning of this year (end of last year). Anomalies do happen and it's too soon to call it a trend.

[GunLawyer001]

There's more of a provable correlation between Heller and a drop in DC crime than there was for the anti's arguments that the DC gun ban reduced crime, and the Semi-Automatic Assault Weapon Ban reduced crime. For both of those bans, the Left (including their their little Goebbels in the media) delighted in manipulating statistics to "prove" that gun bans reduce crime, by picking the lowest point in the past to compare to whatever the present is, or the highest point.

If you use a base year of 1987, then crime has gone up; if you use a base year of 1994, then it fell dramatically. Or you could say that crime seems unrelated to gun control, which the Left only remembers to say when the numbers go against them.

The truth is that crime is caused by criminals, who respond to the environment created by the laws of the jurisdiction. Here in PA, guns are everywhere, but you're heavily restricted in their use. You can't shoot someone who is driving away with your car, or a masked man who you just stopped from burning your house down (you have to wait for him to come back and try again.) Having guns won't deter crime, but if criminals know that they can be shot AFTER their crime fails, or for stealing property, then the cost of being a thig goes up. In a free market, more expensive thuggery results in less crime.

[donm]

. . . has made progress by targeting violent gun offenders . . .

perhaps Philly could give this a try . . .