Last Friday morning I attended the taping of a discussion on violent death in St. Louis. (That discussion airs Monday morning on KMOX on Charlie Brennan’s show.)
Harvard Kennedy School of Government fellow Thomas Abt crunched data and developed a plan for “micro-targeting” young minority males most apt to commit murder. In his book, Bleeding Out, and during the discussion Apt noted that a very few miscreants account for most of a big city’s homicides.
St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden, Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed, James Clark from Better Family Life, Rev. Earl Nance and others echoed Apt’s position that homicide rate reduction occurs when attention – and resources – impact that small group most likely to kill. Several times during the taping this summer’s violent deaths of several children were mentioned: since the taping two more kids died tragically in the city.
Alas, time never allowed a deep discussion on one factor which adds extra pain to the St. Louis situation – the continuing, deliberate antipathy by Missouri state government aimed at the City of St. Louis.
This hatred is not new. Remember, the Confederate Battle Flag includes a star for Missouri, yet, St. Louis interests kept our slave state in the Union during the Civil War.
Time and again the state punishes St. Louis city in every way it can imagine. Remember, only this century did the city regain control of its police department, and, the election board and city schools remain under direct state control!
So, despite losing a vote by the people on a concealed carry law back in 1999, the legislature enacted a series of broad state-wide pro-gun laws. Even though Republicans claim to always genuflect before “local control, Missouri allows the free carry of weapons by anyone not previously convicted of a felony, or, adjudicated crazy everywhere in the state, including the City of St. Louis.
Why are guns so important?
Well, almost two decades ago I heard then State Senator John Loudon (R – west St. Louis County) explain, at a public event at Parkway South High School, that his wife needed to have a gun in her purse to feel safe when she was in “the city.”
Time and again during floor debate in the Missouri Capitol Republican lawmakers defended weakening concealed carry restrictions by decrying the lawlessness and violence in St. Louis city.
(The fact that the violence and lawlessness get exacerbated by the prevalence of guns went right over most legislators’ ability to comprehend.)
Now, remember what Thomas Apt explained about a small number of young adult males committing many murders? To reduce killing, keeping guns away from this discernible subset of the population works. It has worked in Boston and Oakland, it can work in St. Louis.
Only, it can’t be done in Missouri, not even when city residents and their leaders want it to happen. Missouri refuses to let St. Louis do all that it can to help itself. So, the death tolls climbs.
Glenn Koenen