Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor:
I recently spoke with one of our state legislators about the administration’s decision to use national guard troops for crime control in U.S. cities. I suggested this was mostly performative considering the national trend of reduced violent crime, and that supporting law enforcement was a better use of resources.
He disagreed, arguing that these troops would free up law enforcement to concentrate on high crime areas and that this intervention would be free.
National guard troop deployments are certainly not free for the federal government, states, or the employers that hire them in their civilian jobs.
According to The Economist, when including capital flight from effected crime areas, a single homicide in the U.S. cost more than $15 million.
A small number of people commit most acts of violence, but barely half of homicides in the U.S. are ever solved, while countries like Finland solve 98%. The difference is in basic police work. Murder investigations, particularly in economically depressed areas of U.S. cities, often barely get out of the gate.
There are better ways. Cities like Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C. are using drones as first responders (DFRs). Better iterations of this model exist but face political hurdles.
Eighty-five percent of homicides are committed with guns. Third-generation smart guns could dramatically reduce homicides. In addition to their trigger fingerprint readers, their facial scanners would even dramatically reduce gun suicides. Additionally, they would curtail the “iron pipeline” of gun trafficking particularly crucial to gang terrorism and the drug trade from Latin America.
Federally subsidizing gun manufacturers to produce these guns would control their consumer cost and would be politically doable.
William Culbert
Oak Ridge