The discussion of America’s high crime rate is a frequent topic for Trump. Normally a president does not have too much direct impact on the crime rate except promoting sufficient budget for law enforcement, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
PROMOTING VIOLENCE
Trump is the first US president who has been frequently promoting violence (1, 2, 3). There are many dozens of court cases where Trump supporters have credited Trump for inspiring their violence (4). . In one notable example, Trump was giving a speech, and he asked, "What are you going to do about the immigrants crossing the border"? Someone in the audience said "shoot them". He said "you can only get away with that in the (Texas) panhandle". ( 5,6.7). So, one of the MAGAhat boys drove down to El Paso and shot up the Walmart parking lot. It was the largest mass murder in America in 2019 (8). Trump has often suggested violence against his opponents. Years ago, he suggested that the 2nd Amendment people might take care of Hillary (9). Trump promoted a video from a New Mexico commissioner that said ‘the only good democrat is a dead democrat" (10) That commissioner has a history of violent speech against Democrats (11). Trump posted a picture on Truth Social showing Biden being kidnapped (12). At one time, Trump suggested that the police were too nice when they arrested people (13). Some police took that as a green light to murder unarmed members of the public, including lots of minorities (14, 15, 16). Trump is still promoting violence (17).
VIOLENT CRIME TREND
Violent crime in America has been trending down for more than 30 years (18). However, in Trump's last year, 2020, the murder rate jumped up by 30% (19, 20).. This is the highest increase in the murder rate in over a century (19) What makes his accomplishment even more remarkable was that there were fewer people on the street because many people were unemployed or working from home. Thousands of people were already dying from Trump's mismanagement of the virus epidemic (a death rate per capita much worse than most all third-world countries and more than 10 times higher than India). How was such a high murder rate achieved? The overheated political rhetoric was not helpful. Also, the proliferation of assault weapons was a contributor. There are still plenty of murders with handguns, which are still the weapons in the majority of cases. However assault weapons helped some people efficiently run up high numbers. This is an ongoing problem past the end of Trump. administration. The murders with assault weapons are still a relatively small amount of the total murders. What is different is that white suburban middle-class schools and churches are no longer safe places. Now many schools have active shooter drills that are unheard of in many other countries—even third-world countries. In 2016b, when Trump was campaigning for the election, he promised to end violent crime. He said 'I would end the carnage". Instead, he produced the highest murder rate increase in over a century.
HOISTED BY HIS OWN PETARD
Trump systematically gutted existing laws in ways that make kids and communities less safe. Trump illegally narrowed the definition of “fugitive from justice” that’s used to determine who’s barred from buying a gun. Any person “who is a fugitive from justice” is prohibited from purchasing or possessing a gun under federal law. For the purpose of the federal background check system for gun sales, the FBI had long interpreted “fugitive from justice” to include anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant. But less than one month into his presidency, Trump’s DOJ directed the FBI’s background check operators to narrow the definition. It now only bars an individual with an arrest warrant from buying a gun if they: (1) fled a state; (2) did so with the purpose of avoiding prosecution; and (3) were subject to imminent criminal prosecution. He illegally purged 500,000 records from the federal background check system. (21, 22) Trump didn’t just narrow the definition of “fugitives from justice"; the administration also removed all existing records in the federal background check system identifying fugitives who would be prohibited from purchasing guns. His budget also slashed funding that would help states upload necessary records to the background check system. Federal law stipulates that anyone "who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution" cannot own a gun. In 2008, George W. Bush signed the NICS Improvement Amendment Act, which mandated federal agencies to report certain disabled individuals to the database. Federally licensed firearms dealers use the database to screen potential gun buyers. He froze this rule that would have prohibited more people who are dangerous because they suffer from severe mental illness from buying guns. Trump blocked this rule at the request of the gun lobby. Trump rolled back a law that allowed the Social Security Administration to provide information to the national background check system about individuals who had been deemed unable to handle their financial affairs and unable to work based on a severe mental illness (23, 24). He halted a proposal to require gun makers and dealers to sell child safety devices in stores where guns are sold.
At a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump was almost assassinated. The shooter was a young registered Republican. And there were Trump signs in the front yard. Both parents were highly rated potential GOP supporters on the Trump campaign gun database (25). The family had 14 guns in the house, including some AR-15s (26). It's ironic that after promoting violence and guns so much, Trump almost became a victim of gun violence. The Shakespearean term for this is hoist by his own petard.
THE OUTRAGE
In 2024, the FBI revised the statistics for violent crime in 2022. It was very predictable that a lot of uninformed members of the public were outraged. They were not aware of the crime statistics during the Trump administration, so they never asked any questions about the 30% increase in the murder rate under Trump. The question to ask Republican members of Congress is, Where was the outrage when Trump increased the murder rate by 30%?. And who has any statistics about how often MAGAhat people are attacking minorities, which has been common since before 2020 (27). The Democrats are not involved in calculating the crime statistics. The FBI has always been a Republican organization. Every director of the FBI has always been a Republican, including the current FBI director that was appointed by Trump. If there was a democratic conspiracy to manipulate data, it would have been better to post the correction 2 years ago instead of during an election year. When Hillary Clinton was running for office, the Republican FBI director, James Comey, announced a bogus third-party investigation of Hillary just before the election. That threw the race to Trump. Some Democrats may see this as another October surprise from the Republican FBI. It appears as if the FBI quietly made the change so it would not look like they are again throwing the race to Trump. But all they needed to do was leak the info to the press to cause some damage to the Democrats again.
CURRENT CRIME RATES
One way to get high crime statistics is to use surveys. These can be wildly inaccurate and unverified. People can report without any proof or any investigations about crimes that they did not report to police. The most accurate crime statistics are about murders and car thefts because they are always reported to police. By 2023, the crime reports in large cities were improving (28)) . By February 2023, it became clear that public perception is disconnected from reality (29).. An independent analysis of murder rates was showing a significant drop in murder rates (30). But a Gallup poll was showing that many people think that crime is now extremely high or very serious. Even more so than previously, when the murder rate was actually higher (31). There have been several reports about the difference between the public perception and the actual reality of crime (32, 33). One of the reasons for the gap between perception and reality is the constant negative political propaganda. Why do politicians exaggerate the crime rates? Historically, this has been done in Third World countries to justify martial law using the police and military to control the public. Trump already tried to plan a military coup on December 18, 2020https://www.mana-now.com/all-news/categories/the-constitution. Trump has promised to give police immunity from prosecution. That has been tried in many Third World countries, and it leads to a massive amount of crime by police. There has been a lot of speculation about why people believe political propaganda without checking the actual facts. It appears that the main reason is because they want to.
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