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North Carolina has experienced “a perfect storm of challenges” over the past two years of the pandemic.

Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry told members of a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday that rising poverty and increased access to firearms has led to a devastating rise in violence.

“Increases in poverty are closely linked to increases in crime as stress and desperation make people more likely to see crime as their best or only option,” Deberry testified. “At the same time, Americans purchased guns in record numbers — more than 40 million over that last two years, worsening this nation’s gun epidemic.”

Deberry said that even as newly purchased firearms were used in more crimes, many states eased access to and regulation of guns.

At the same time, the Durham DA told the congressional panel that there has been an erosion of trust and confidence in the criminal legal system, particularly between law enforcement and people of color.

“We have to stop pretending reform is the real threat to public safety and recognize how over-reliance on prosecution and incarceration may make us less safe. We do not need to “choose” between reform and public safety – those two objectives are inherently linked,” Deberry said.

— Clayton Henkel in Poverty, gun accessibility looms large in congressional effort to reimagine public safety in the COVID era.

 

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88 COMMENTS

    • They are blaming the actions of people on an inanimate object. Guns don’t “cause” crime. Thus it’s not a “gun epidemic.”

        • Was between that and referencing Dagon heritage but it was not really in the right areas for that.

      • “Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn…”

        Lovecraft-ian for “Bring out the Gimp.” “The Gimp’s sleeping.”…

    • Hmm? My ex-wife had a bizarre friend who named her kids Satana n Lucius. Yeah after Satan & Lucifer. True story bro. I’d put this critter in that camp…

        • Make no mistake about it…satan-a exists in line item 3…

          1) The Second Amendment is one thing.

          2) The criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. is another thing.

          3) History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is a racist and nazi based Thing.

  2. Are there more crimes because people are buying guns or are the more guns because there is more crime and less prosecution of crimes?

  3. As always, blame the gun.

    He just maybe, possibly, might have an inkling of a clue about poverty. Strangely enough, though, some of the poorest populations in history have seen the least crime.

    His only real clue is his passing reference to the classroom-to-prison pipeline. Stop gathering people up off the streets and sending them to prison. No petty criminal should be in prison. They should be in their home communities, working. They should be at home, raising their children. No one pays taxes in prison. No one pays restitution in prison. No one really works in prison – only trustees are permitted jobs that allow them to earn a pittance. The whole prison for profit system is broken, and breaks American communities.

    No one should profit by locking people up. No one. Why do we provide an incentive for slavers to break up families?

    • I had to look it up, but the person is actually female. I don’t know how “it” identifies itself.

      It took reading several articles before I found one that called “it” a “her”.

    • “They should be in their home communities, working. They should be at home, raising their children.”

      Unless they’re thieves or violent in which case they deserve to be closed off from society. If they do it again, they should get a harsher sentence. If they don’t know how to get along with civilized people then let them “age out” of violent crime behind bars where they can’t hurt anyone. We all know the rules and the laws. It’s their choice.

      • “Unless they’re thieves or violent in which case they deserve to be closed off from society.”

        Tell all your elected and appointed officials that when convicted of violent crime (what the heck, any felony), prisoners are placed on a mandatory organ donor list. That list would include any part of a human that has a duplicate (arms, knees, feet, lungs, etc). Once time is served, the individual is removed from the list. If criminals end up looking like a jigsaw puzzle with a coupla pieces gone, well, that is the price they pay for their crimes.

        The public might just win twice.

        • @Sam

          That is a plot line that has been explored by the finest names in speculative fiction (SciFi).

          Larry Niven’s “The Jigsaw Man” is a short story written with this premise in mind.
          From Wiki: “In the future, criminals convicted of capital offenses are forced to donate all of their organs to medicine, so that their body parts can be used to save lives and thus repay society for their crimes. However, high demand for organs has inspired lawmakers to lower the bar for execution further and further over time”…the protagonist in the story will ultimately be convicted of multiple traffic violations and sent to the chopping block.

          The greed of Society for replacement “parts” would make this idea a very, very slippery slope indeed!

          I can envision a 200 yr old pieced-together Franken Pelosi saying…”refused your 125th COVID booster…to the “chop shop” with you…BTW, what blood type are you?”

      • You’ll have to do a little better. Thieves? Do you mean the school kid who shoplifted a candy bar? Or do you mean the accountant who accounted a few thousand into his personal checking? Or what, exactly?

        Most thieves pose little if any danger to anyone. Said thieves need to be dealt with in the community.

        Armed robbers, yeah, that’s a whole different animal. They need to be dealt with harshly, and removed from society until they can be made to see the error of their ways. Let’s not send a shoplifter to prison to share a cell with armed robbers. All that does is to teach the shoplifter that he might get more money by adopting the robber’s tactics.

        Petty criminals should see a little jail time (not prison), and they should be kept in the community to work off their debts, as well as to contribute to raising their offspring.

        • Paul, you are going to have to do a hell of a lot better. No kid has ever gone to prison for stealing a candy bar. An accountant who stole from his clients? He deserves prison. I beg to differ with you. a thief is a danger to everyone and deserves prison and a felony record. You see, thieves just keep on stealing.

          A thief is just another kind of criminal that belongs where their are bars and fences to keep them from preying on the rest of us. A shoplifter doesn’t go to prison either. County jail maybe. when it all comes out in the wash, when you tally up all the thievery that a “petty thief” accumulates, he’s as bad as any other criminal.

        • Paul, some things go without saying because we have common sense. A thief that steals more than a candy bar should absolutely be given more than your suggested slap on the wrist. White collar thieves stealing thousands can ruin lives and deserve to be walled off from society.

    • Paul: You live in a dream world. I certainly agree that the first time petty offender should be treated differently from the felony offender, however, too many times the first time petty offender actually committed a felony but it was reduced down to a misdemeanor as part of a plea bargain. That said, also, far too frequently the first time petty offender who got off with probation and possibly time served is too soon back in court with another committed crime. Unfortunately, once started down the criminal path, the biggest percentage of such people continue their life of crime. Why they do that is one of the big mysteries in life. No criminologist, no sociologist, no psychologist, no penologist and no judge has been able to determine why that is true but sadly, it is true. There was a discussion on this site about a fellow who just had the burglary of ten units in a storage yard declared one offense by the Federal Supremes rather than the ten it actually was. Folks decried the fact that he should be declared a career criminal citing 20 years between the two offenses cited in the article. What was never mentioned in the article or any other writings about the individual was what his rap sheet showed. Based on 25 years of working in CA courts, I feel safe is stating that his rap sheet was at least 3 pages long if he was involved in felonies for which he was arrested twenty years apart and more than likely considerably longer than that. Many burglaries go unreported because A. They are not investigated beyond opening a file on it. and, B. even if they are investigated, not enough work is done to solve the burglary. and C. If you report it to your insurance company your rates go up the next year and the yearly increase due to a paid burglary claim over the years amounts to more than the amount you received on the claim after your deductible.

  5. I’d like to hear of at least instance of a reporter asking these political clowns: “Do you really believe that because of poverty, people are going to a merchant to legally buy firearms and then using those firearms to commit crimes?” “If so, was data do you have to back up that assertion?”

    So sick of these politicians engaging in “double speak” to justify unconstitutional beliefs AND impose policy based on those flawed beliefs.

    • The only problem most politicians are trying to solve is raising money and getting reelected. They only data they care about is polling and the most popular talking points.

      • Doing an internet search for the history of “media”/”press” could be instructive. The idea that at one time there was an objective, truthful, “working for the people” media/press is a notion instigated and propagated by the “media”/”press”.

        The many variations of “the power of the press belongs to he who owns one” weren’t created in a vacuum. “Truth” doesn’t sell. Every “news” outlet has a point of view that is enforced, and reinforced internally.

        • I was referring way back to the seventeen hundreds. Although I wasn’t there I assumed that they were telling the truth about the king and looking out for the subject’s interests. I suppose you are right though I’ve seen very early political cartoons that are brutally one sided.

        • “Every “news” outlet has a point of view that is enforced, and reinforced internally.”

          The difference in recent history is that only a few large corporations now own all of the newspapers / media outlets. At least a few decades ago, you had multiple points of view.

    • You should look up Thomas Sowell’s channels and videos on YouTube. Really interesting. A black, conservative, economist who pulls no punches with Progressives, black culture, victimhood, government intervention, and more.

      • “A black, conservative,”

        Really?

        I’ve been told authentic black men all have mustaches. Elder seems to not have a mustache.

        It’s becoming quite difficult to keep up with labels these days.

        • Thomas Sowell was anathema to BLM and the white apologists for black criminals. Even Ole’ Jesse Jackson once said, “I hear footsteps behind me at night and I am relieved when it is a white boy that passes me.”
          He too decried black on black crime in his early days until he found that kind of honesty met with disfavor among his constituency.

  6. “We have to stop pretending reform is the real threat to public safety and recognize how over-reliance on prosecution and incarceration may make us less safe. We do not need to “choose” between reform and public safety – those two objectives are inherently linked,” Deberry said.

    Lock up the animals and keep them in their cages.

    There is no ‘Gun Epidemic’. That is a liberal progressive talking point. What we have an epidemic of is fentanyl/opioids. But all that gets ignored. That’s not to mention the epidemic of human trafficking. Too much attention given to the wrong thing and not enough to the right thing.

    • 2 years ago we had a massive operation against human trafficking that hit some areas of NY that I wasn’t even aware of being hubs. Hope the Marshalls and others are still running that task force but wouldn’t surprise me if it dropped off back to the attention it got the previous 30 odd years.

  9. her office has been working from home the last two years due to the covid, they just came back in the office yesterday!

  10. If only the poors were smart enough to buy a Tesla, they would save a ton of money on gas, and wouldn’t need to have guns or steal bread. How are they supposed to buy their EV if they’re locked up in jail??

  11. Astounding.

    After two years of covid restrictions, more people are in the streets, and the same old criminals went back to work, plying their trade: crime. Who didn’t see that coming? Dims?

  12. If they’d arrest and jail the Durham gang members commiting the crimes and murders most of the crime would stop. Durham is infested with gangs/gang members.

    • That is an uncomfortable truth in any reasonably populated area and even arresting just the most violent quarter or so of gang members would drastically reduce crime. Can’t say for sure why we are not allowed to focus efforts there but at a guess a mix of “that’s racist”, we would lose our budget without as much crime as currently justifies it, it’s more profitable/desirable to go after political rivals and those with assets to lose. Mind you it’s a guess and I trend towards not trusting those who seek power.

      • “Can’t say for sure why we are not allowed to focus efforts there…”

        It’s because Dims, dictators, leftists, authoritarians (please excuse the redundancy) like criminals among the population. Serves many elements of the agenda to destroy a nation, and build back better.

        • Not going to fully back that position but it is a lot harder to argue against it than it should be.

  13. Something about people who refuse to prosecute crimes and jail criminals harping about rising crime seems disingenuous to me.

  14. quote————Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry told members of a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday that rising poverty and increased access to firearms has led to a devastating rise in violence.——-quote

    Excellent article. You do not even have to have a degree in Sociology to realize these simple facts.

    In the 50’s and 60’s when I grew up the population was over 130 million “less”. High paying industrial jobs were the norm not the exception. One man could make enough money to support a wife, a mistress and all his children.

    Our crime rate was way lower as were our homicides with guns simply because people had so much money they did not have to resort to crime to pay bills.

    So what does all this mean today. With over 330 million people in the U.S. and the majority of them working low paying shit jobs with no benefits the crime rate will continue to soar. And no, building concentration camps will not work because as fast as you build them they will be overflowing with desperate people who stole to pay bills.

    Unfortunately its way cheaper and simpler just to ban guns as the Capitalvanians are not about to ever pay a worker a livable days wages or ever again give him benefits or even holidays off. That is reality like it or not in Capitalvania.

    • Banning guns creates more problems in reality, which means the pols can demand higher taxes (but not on their rich friends) to inflate their budgets and expand the scope of their control schemes. You seem to be making more sense lately. Did something happen to you?

    • dacian, the Dunderhead, A Leftist anti-gun radical like yourself would think that this woman is correct in her opinion although it is based on nothing but her opinion. The fact is that each and every day a good guy with a gun neutralizes a bad guy with a gun.

      As to comparing the 1950’s to today is like trying to compare grapes and oranges. These are different times, much due to the inception of your welfare programs which started in 1967 with LBJ’s “Great (sic) Society”. Fact is Lefty that those programs have produced more poverty. Poverty levels are actually higher than they were back in the 50’s. The average annual wage in 2019 in the US was $51,916.27, That “sir” is nothing to sneeze at. The fact is that you Lefties think that you can legislate people into prosperity. I have a RED HOT NEWS FLASH for you. Government has not created any jobs. Only private companies do. With your over regulated economy it is a wonder that wages are as high as they are. We are over taxed and underserved.

  15. @SAFEupstateFML
    “I really should learn how to read Mandarin.”

    Read Mandarin? I’d rather be in a Rugby match, without a helmet and pads.

      • “Well yeah but it would help in deciphering your previous comment ”

        Put prisoners on a special national database for organ donors (limited to only parts that have a duplicate (arms, legs, eyes, kidneys, etc) so that when leaving prison, the individual is not paraplegic (all parts available if prisoner dies in custody).

        The criminal is off the streets (win for the public), and if parts are donated, win for an individual.

        Haven’t gotten much interest is this idea, yet. Thought about putting the recommendation on the online government initiative list.

        Let’s put prisoners to good use.

    • dacian, the Dunderhead. Last I heard those were ALLEGATIONS YET TO BE PROVEN IN A COURT OF LAW. Of all the defendants that have been convicted, most of the convictions have been for minor violations.

      MSM is hardly a reliable source of information which can be relied upon.

  17. I would think poverty would make access to guns and ammo very difficult; that is unless you are first willing to resort to crime to obtain them, then in that case you are first a criminal and the gun has nothing to do with it.

      • You bet it is Cowardly, But that is what the Leftists are claiming. They want to ban an inanimate object that they claim is “causing crime.”

        If you can’t respect your elders, respect your betters.

    • “Those stats are for LEGAL purchases of firearms.
      Criminals don’t legally purchase their guns.”

      You don’t understand. People who legally purchase guns do so in order to give to, or sell to, persons prohibited from possessing firearms. If you take all the guns away from legal purchasers (as in restrict gun ownership to military and police), the supply will dry up for the criminals, and eventually their guns will break and become useless. Crime will be almost unheard of in the US. Isn’t that worth sacrificing a few unarmed persons?

  21. This guy got it partially right, there has been a major erosion of trust. The American people have been betrayed by their governments at every level.

  22. Satana is a “progressive” lesbian elected from the almost all college population of Durham NC — Home of Duke, NC Central, and other colleges. She is the proud product of young female voters, inner city thugs, and a large gay population. Her ignorant comments are not a surprise after one does research on who elected her.

  23. @muckraker
    “I’ve seen very early political cartoons that are brutally one sided.”

    Indeed. To be objective (which is not truly possible), media would be required to only report: what, who, when, where. There could be no “why” because that opens up narrative/opinion/agenda.

    Ex: Today, at 1013AM, the president boarded the Marine 1 helicopter, bound for Camp David. The helicopter lifted off at 1030AM. The official presidential calendar notes a 1130AM meeting with the Secretary of State. The president is scheduled to return to the White House at 4PM, today.

    Restrict all “news” reporting IAW the cryptic example above, and advertisers would flee (as would subscribers/viewers).

  24. @Dude
    “At least a few decades ago, you had multiple points of view.”

    Yes, multiple views locally. Nationally, Cronkite, Huntly, Brinkley, Brokaw, Koppel, all presented the same view (just not as overtly as the last 10yrs). Now, differing points of view are considered a national security risk: people must be protected from their own inability to identify and refuse “misinformation”.

  25. She is partially right on her bit about how people need to be in the community raising their families. How many of these criminals have children by multiple mothers? How many of the criminals are in a stable relationship and involved in the raising of their offspring? How many grew up running the streets instead of going to school and also had no father in the home?
    The cycle of broken, or never was families has been a greater contributor to crime than any number of firearms.
    Hate to tell the idiots the truth, but guns do not cause crime. Nor does access to said firearms. Young people who see their gangbanger cousin, or neighbor holding a wad of drug money, or stolen cash cause crime when they are not taught that such actions(Crime) is not acceptable behavior. As well as not having unpleasant consequences to said criminal behavior.

  26. If firearms are a disease then it is now (and has been for a long time) in “endemic” status verses “epidemic”. The point is with more guns that people in the US you are not getting rid of them. You have to learn to manage it/them like diabetes, covid, biden, etc.

  27. The last female of color DA in Durham prosecuted very few criminals who used guns in the commission of their crimes. Her excuse was limited resources. She would only prosecute if it “was a slam dunk”. Durham, the city of (murder) Medicine is a basket case for crime. I dont have the answer and Satana damn sure doesnt. They have to blame it on something. Their police department is severly manpower depleted. They resorted to renting bill boards along the highways in NC as help wanted signs. I wont drive into or thru the city anymore. You used to have to, to get from west to east. Now there is a high speed bypass. People of means that work there live in gated communities with private security. Why anyone would retire and stay there is beyond me.

  29. I tend to think its Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry that led to a devastating rise in violence.

  30. Well they must not be to poverty stricken if they can afford to buy a gunm.
    Them guys talking about being poor have no idea what being poor is really like.
    When gasoline hits $15 a gallon.
    Crime —, We ain’t seen nothing yet.

  31. Whatever else he is, Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry is correct in this:

    “We have to stop pretending reform is the real threat to public safety and recognize how over-reliance on prosecution and incarceration may make us less safe. We do not need to “choose” between reform and public safety – those two objectives are inherently linked.”

    This quote brings to mind the fact of privately (commercially?) run prisons and the draconian sentencing of miscreants to virtual slavery that are, in total, a national disgrace and a blemish on our society. The idea that American prisons are “reformatories” is a cruel joke. The truth is that American prisons provide captive slave labor to unscrupulous business enterprises, a situation that is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. No wonder that our society is rife with recidivist ex-convicts.

  34. @Old Lefty
    “He too decried black on black crime in his early days until he found that kind of honesty met with disfavor among his constituency.”

    One must keep in mind that Jackson’s “constituency” was/is white power brokers.

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