Maybe if they vaped

In a recent letter, Karl Kimball restated in his own words the usual conservative talking points that the deterioration of our family units and the taking of God from our classrooms have created a “violent and dangerous society.” But what about the data?

In 1970, the U.S. violent-crime rate was 363.5 per 100,000 people. This rate rose to 758.2 in 1991 before falling to 382.9 in 2017. During the same period, the homicide rate fell from 7.9 to 5.3. The preliminary 2018 Uniform Crime Report shows nearly all offenses in the violent-crime category have declined even further. Data show that, in spite of the commonly occurring mass shootings which give the perception of a violent society, our country is still less violent and safer now than during the 41 years from 1971 to 2012.

In February 2018, the libertarian Cato Institute released an article titled “Are Mass Shootings Becoming More Frequent?” A study for the period from 2000 to 2015 “found that the number of incidents more than doubled from the first to the second half of the period.” Is it just a coincidence that the D.C. v. Heller decision in 2008, after which some states—Texas, Arkansas, etc.—began relaxing their existing gun regulations, is in the middle of this time frame?

The killing of 20 children between 6 and 7 years old at Sandy Hook in December 2012 did nothing to spur the GOP to act on gun control. Since Sandy Hook there have been 239 school shootings with 138 killed, and still the GOP balks on the ban of military-type assault weapons. But now after the tragic deaths of several people from vaping, Trump is seeking to ban flavored vaping products. What a country!

KENNETH WEBER

Greenbrier