St. Louis alderman misfires with call for more guns
AP Photo/Kelley McCall
St. Louis Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe, a Democrat representing the First Ward, is urging his constituents to start carrying firearms to protect themselves and their property. The St. Louis Police Department, he proclaimed, has lost the trust of the ward’s residents.
Mr. Troupe points to nine homicides this year in his north St. Louis neighborhood and notes that St. Louis Firefighter Leonard Riggins was shot last month (albeit in North St. Louis County) by a motorist he thought needed aid. He says he and his neighbors “are being terrorized by this criminal element out there.”
Mr. Troupe’s frustration and anger are understandable and are shared by many citizens. But the public has a right to expect a more thoughtful, more level-headed and better-informed response from public officials. To blame the police department for gun crime is like blaming the fire department for forest fires.
The 148 homicides committed in the city through October are heavily concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods, including those in Mr. Troupe’s First Ward. But there have been steady declines in other kinds of crime. If the police are as inept as Mr. Troupe alleges, why is crime down overall?
Indeed, with the city’s population higher than it was in 1990, why are homicides themselves down substantially from what they were a decade ago and from the high of 267 homicides in 1993?
Undaunted by difficult facts, Mr. Troupe — a longtime critic of the police department, both as a state legislator and as an alderman — wants more guns and is trying to recruit members of the community to train and apply for permits to carry concealed weapons.
If citizens want concealed-carry permits, that’s their right. But before they do, they should consider that most of the city’s homicides are gang- and/or drug-related; in many cases, both the victim and the shooter were armed. It is relatively rare for a person to be killed by a stranger.
Missouri already has experienced an explosion in applications for concealed-carry permits. The Missouri Highway Patrol reports that background investigations (necessary before the permits are issued by local authorities) rose statewide from 5,072 in 2005 to 14,038 in 2008 (through November). In the city of St. Louis alone, 1,485 concealed-carry permits already have been issued — and homicides are up anyway.
Mr. Troupe is part of an aldermanic majority that wants control of St. Louis’ police department returned to the city. Along with Mayor Francis Slay, the aldermen support legislation that would abandon the current system, which dates back to the Civil War, by which the department is overseen by a five-person Board of Police Commissioners, four of whom are appointed by the governor.
If Mr. Troupe’s outburst is indicative of how public safety policy would be made under a city-run operation, St. Louisans might want to think twice about the movement toward local control.
Mr. Troupe says that his constituents’ “No. 1 priority is trying to keep their children alive. Their black, male children. And that’s a Herculean task.”
The priority, however, isn’t the problem. The problem, as University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld put it, is that Mr. Troupe’s proposed solution relies on the same “logic of young people on the street who are involved in gun violence: Everyone has a gun; I want one too.”
“It is relatively rare for a person to be killed by a stranger.”
Who cares? Dead is dead as far as I can tell. Tell that to the family of the guy in my neighborhood who got up a couple Fridays ago, drove to the end of the street and was then shot in the neck and died. Shooter still has not been caught.
“But the public has a right to expect a more thoughtful, more level-headed and better-informed response from public officials.”
No thanks. Their only response, including Chief Isom’s, is to limit the number of guns available to those who can legally have them. The Chief and his people show up AFTER the fact to write the reports. I have little faith in any public official in this town so why should they be trusted with my safety?
“Mr. Troupe is part of an aldermanic majority that wants control of St. Louis’ police department returned to the city. Along with Mayor Francis Slay, the aldermen support legislation that would abandon the current system, which dates back to the Civil War, by which the department is overseen by a five-person Board of Police Commissioners, four of whom are appointed by the governor.”
The citizens of this city would be better served by the MO National Guard moving in and providing protection.
Who in their right mind would live in the city without a well secured home including guns, and definitely a shotgun or rifle for those who are not such great shots?
Why is it that most authorities and many others feel that it is okay for those who live in White communities to bare arm for protection but not so for Blacks in their communities? In fact, I think that even one with a felony conviction should have the right to protect his home and family within his home with a rifle or shot gun.
Eddie —— do you have a gun permit?
Guess it might be hypocritical for former St. Louis Police Board political appointee with gun permit lecturing law-abiding citizens not to do as does he.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “The hunt for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions”, and it appears Alderman Troupe is on that expedition. Before making comments the Alterman should know that murders are virtually impossible to predict and stop. They are spontanious, close relative, friend, and drug related. The primary prevention of murder, and all violent crimes, is to prevent the city’s infratructure from deteriorating. With a crime rate 3 times the national average it appears that Alterman Troup has failed in his job while at the same time looking to the police chief as a scapegoat. It’s no wonder the average tenure of a police chief in this country is only 3 1/2 years.
Wow, I agree with D. Walker. How strange.
Beyond the felony issue, folks do have the right to own guns, and, more recently, carry a concealed weapon. There is no legal restriction in any local community white or black. The issue is not should the gvmt take away guns or allow guns, but whether Troupe’s recommendation that citizens should arm themselves represents a sound recommendation in reducing violent crime.
In terms of homicides, the vast majority of homicides are not random but occur the victim is involved in behaviors–including selling drugs and committing violence as a part of the drug trade–that puts him or herself at risk. One could make a strong argument that a better solution to this is some sort of decriminalization of drug use and sales, although the benefits in terms of reduction of violence around the “business” might be offset by the costs of greater use and addiction.
Here is the truth: the probability that a concealed gun is going to prevent a potential crime is much lower than a probability that an inproper use of a firearm will accidently result in an injury or death.
A much more fruitful strategy to combat local crime would be to pursue the sort of community policing efforts that have been successful at reducing crime in other northside neighborhoods. These efforts vary slighly in their emphasis, but each combine enhancing policing with meetings between law enforcement and residents to improve relationships and the ability of the community to provide input into local police work. They are not a total panacea, but the evidence suggests that they do work.
To get these programs in place unfortunately requires additional resources. Wait, isn’t Troupe an aldermen and former state legislator? One would think that a capable local leader would do much more than grand-stand; however, that has been Troupe’s MO for a long time.
“Here is the truth: the probability that a concealed gun is going to prevent a potential crime is much lower than a probability that an inproper use of a firearm will accidently result in an injury or death.”
-brotherbill, even had you cited the source of this “truth” it would remain an example of falsehoods and propaganda that anti-gunners create to support their opinions. In addition to deterrant effects, many times incidents of armed victims preventing injury or death are not reflected in statistics. I know of two such incidents, myself.
The could have easily taken that %57,500 just approved for the ridiculous gun buyback program and paid some overtime to cops to patrol that area.
Yes, truth is difficult to define. On the one hand, you cite two anecdotes where having a gun deterred crime. On the other hand, I have read both Kellerman 1993 case-control articles, as well as the more recent dissenting article by Speck and Hogan, the latter suggesting that the former’s link between gun ownership and victimization is spurious, related to other unobserved characteristics of those who commit homicides. Neither adequately addresses the methodological issues involved, much less the fact that gun ownership data is very difficult to get at a reasonable level of analysis. Speck and Hogan conclude that there is no good reason to not encourage people to carry guns, but this is hardly a ringing endorsement.
As I said before, the issue is not whether individuals should be allowed to carry guns–in Missouri, they can and they can carry them concealed. The point is whether it is good public policy to encourage people to carry guns as opposed to the other solutions that exist, that have been proven to be successful, for which Alderman Troupe need not look too far to identify. Homicide victimization is largely related, unfortunately, to the illegal drug economy that is concentrated in urban areas and that infects the lives of too many young people. In my mind, that calls out for a moral, cultural, political and economic campaign that invests in urban communities, the children in them and their futures.
However, if you want to carry your gun, feel free to…
bb
Crime in the city is rampant. This sounds like one honest non-pc politician to me. I am also shocked to agree with DW.
My son’s girlfriend lives in the city. Her apartment has been burglarized.
Her car was broken into during the Thansgiving holiday and her roommate was attacked as she left her apartment as a guy waited for her to leave and tried to tie her up but luckily she screamed loud enough. No one should live in the city without protection.
If drug thugs kill each other I say more power to them. It saves the city money. But innocent people cannot continue to be sabataged.