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“Liberals criticize stop-and-frisk because those stopped and frisked and sent to jail under New York’s draconian gun enforcement are disproportionately black and Hispanic. Never mind that those who commit murders and those who are victims of murders are disproportionately black and Hispanic. The thing to notice here is that stop-and-frisk can liberate us from the prevailing political unrealism of the gun-control debate.” – Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in Gun Control That Works [via wsj.com]

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37 COMMENTS

  1. So, if I am reading this correctly, “the ends justify the means”?

    And we could capture a lot of criminals if law enforcement could burst into any home, any time, for any reason and ransack the home looking for evidence of some crime.

    Fortunately that’s not the way our criminal justice system is supposed to work in this country.

    • The weird thing is that “Stop and Frisk” is done to black and Latino people at a MUCH higher rate than to white people, but the stats put out by the NYPD show that white people are more often found to have weapons on them!!! Despite years of seeing a higher percentage (2x to 3x) of white people with illegal weapons compared to African Americans and Latinos, the cops are still randomly frisking minorities at a MUCH higher rate!!!!

      It’s completely and totally racist, and the numbers that the NYPD put out, which show the race of everyone stopped and the number of people, broken down by race, who are found with weapons PROVES that it’s racist.

      • You have to demonstrate that the number (percentage) of people of one color/race being stopped and frisked has a higher percentage of minorities than the to the ethnic makeup of the total population before you can call racism.

        • It’s not even close.

          http://www.nyclu.org/node/1598

          “From 2002 to 2011, black and Latino residents made up close to 90 percent of people stopped, and about 88 percent of stops – more than 3.8 million – were of innocent New Yorkers. Even in neighborhoods that are predominantly white, black and Latino New Yorkers face the disproportionate brunt. For example, in 2011, Black and Latino New Yorkers made up 24 percent of the population in Park Slope, but 79 percent of stops.”

          Relative to the general NYC population, Blacks and Latinos represent 52.6% of the population but 90% of all stops.

  2. Seeing as how I don’t subscribe to the WSJ, I can’t read the article for context. Judging by his sub title, though, I’d say he sees S&F as a way to end around political deadlock for gun control.

    • Ahh you don’t know the how to read a WSJ article trick?

      Copy the title of the article, enter it in google, search, then click on the 1st link and it will take you to the full article free of charge.

      You welcome.

      • I did a search using the title and did not find it under the WSJ. I did find an article with that title by the Economist with a different author. His solution was to ban guns.

        • The Economist can be very British on certain subjects.

          I don’t think they ever retracted their glowing review of Arming America, either.

      • Did the trick and read the article, it’s really weird, he agrees that magazine restrictions won’t work because they’re to easy to make by criminals and limiting mag size would make only law abiding citizens with less bullets to defend themselves, the solution to the gun problem?

        It’s obvious! Go full facist and do stop and frisk in all the high crime cities, it works in New York.

        Geez, I can’t but old Jenkins Jr. standing in front of a swastika singing the praises of Hitler.

  3. If only you ignore that pesky Constitution thing, we can control the proles much better. Who needs the 4th Amendment anyway?

    I pretty much gave up on the WSJ 10 years ago when the reporting started circling the bowl. Since Murdoch took over, it’s become a joke paper.

  4. Sure “Stop & Frisk Works.” But why stop there – if you put every black New Yorker in a camp and made them prove themselves worthy of release you would put a major dent in crime. Better yet (for you liberals) why not just put all the blacks into camps, make them work until they’re near death, and then gas them and throw their bodies into mass graves.

    What a f*cked up country we live in.

  5. I will reserve comment until I can see the whole article. He is a conservative writer and I have seen some other opinons he has written.

  6. I hope Mr. Jenkins realizes that the bar for “illegal gun” is pretty low, and even someone with a Westchester County permit caught with a gun in NYC will almost certainly get the same treatment as any gang member.

  7. Stop and frisk is nothing but lazy New Yahk Shitty police work. It results in young, male members of racial minorities being constantly profiled and harassed. Even with the fact that a higher percentage of Black and Hispanic men commit homicides, the percentage is not so high as to justify treating every young male of these groups as a suspect.

    Decriminalizing marijuana or even cocaine and some opiates would put a huge dent in urban violence, because the violence is motivated by the profits of dope slingers. Their profit derives from a black market created by the state, undermine that market and increase access to addiction treatment programs and you will see a stark reduction in urban gun violence.

    It would also help if there were a shred of economic opportunity for local laborers in the big cities, as of right now there is very little due to mass immigration and gentrification. Most people who sell dope do it to support their families. They will kill to defend their turf because that turf is like farmland to them. It provides for them when there is no legitimate work to be found.

    Nobody takes these options seriously because nobody is really serious about fixing the ghetto. People do not care and the government actually benefits from the high crime rate, because it leaves the ignorant clamoring for the government to take draconian measures in order to reduce crime. This government we have today will never let an excuse for a new draconian policy go to waste.

    • For all that, S&F also resulted in some neighborhoods in the Bronx actually becoming liveable again. It’s a tough nut to crack, but I prefer it to more laws targeting legal gun owners.

    • Here we go with the single answer to a problem line of thinking. Gangs deal drugs but gangs and gang related violence in the inner city go back long before the Mafia lost control of the drug market. Gangs are a product of the breakdown of civil society in the inner cities not drugs. A recent study indicates that Chicago gangs are now making as much money off of bootlegged cigarettes as they are on drugs.

      Drugs are freely available for sale in every county in the United States. A Northern Virginia user doesn’t have to drive into SE DC to get drugs any more. He can meet his dealer over a cup of latte at the local Starbucks. My trained eye has seen this happen many times where both buyer and seller are both white and middle class. If drugs are the cause of violent crime why isn’t there an equal amount of drug related crime in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church?

      There are three factors that determine the level of violence in a community: the number of people on welfare, the percentage of children borne out of wedlock and living in female headed households and the length of time the Democratic Party has political control because they pursue policies that maximize the two other demographic factors.

  8. If you cannot read the article, follow these instructions to read any WSJ article.

    Copy the title of the article, enter it in google, search, then click on the 1st link and it will take you to the full article free of charge.

    You welcome.

  9. Nope, tried it – no work. But, the quote is good enough for me… same as “no racial profiling” which has TSA frisking little children & grandmas in wheelchairs instead of the women in burkas & all of the “Mohamed Atta’s” in the queue.

  10. Right- lets give up the 4th to protect the 2nd. Do these ppl even stop and listen to what bat-shiat crazy ideas they are suggesting?

  11. Also, did anybody notice how pale and sluggish this guy looks… Almost like I’d expect him to be shuffling around screaming, “BRAINZ!!!!!!!!!”

  12. So I can have guns and my freedom or I can have no guns and Mayor Bloomberg’s hired help’s hands down my pants. What a country.

  13. This just in: Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. is a racist shithead and a proponent of a police state! Also, he looks drunk.

  14. So, so glad to see how many people in the comments are defending the 4th amendment and the bill of rights in its entirety.

    Remember, divide and conquer is not just about separating the Fudds from the AR fanboys. It’s about getting us to split up along the lines of which right we value more, Speech and Privacy being just as important.

    The reactions here make me think there is hope for us yet.

  15. Bingo: tdniiva the number of people on welfare, the percentage of children borne out of wedlock and living in female headed households and the length of time the Democratic Party has political control because they pursue policies that maximize the two other demographic factors.

    However, the drugs do add fuel to the problems of these areas and you can’t ignore the historical systematic racism and oppression that created urban ghettos in the first place. So, even though I agree with the breakdown of the families as the main cause of today’s youth violence. There are a lot of factors involved in the conditions of the urban environment. I know because I grew up in and out of the ghetto.

    • My only point was that “it’s the drug war” is really no different than the “grab the guns” explanation of crime in the inner cities. There are multiple factors that have allowed civil society to break down in the inner city and focusing on one single point will solve nothing.

  16. How about we try this experiment. We let all people exercise their constitutional rights regardless of their zip code. We insist that the government and it’s employees play by the same rules we do. Let’s try this for about ten years as a trial, since apparently it’s never been done before. At the end of the 10 years let’s have a national discussion on whether or not following the constitution works or not.

  17. Why is it the the first amendment is interpreted to not be subject to balancing with other interests, but the rest are free to be balanced with any interest, including “just one life?”
    Ah, right, because the people “interpreting” them for us relies entirely on the first amendment to push their propaganda. Never mind.

  18. Well I hate to burst his bubble, but a lot of the S&F cases have been tossed due to the fact they are Unconstitutional! Race aside.. So really this helps no one, and personally unless the cop looks like one of the Charlies Angels, I don’t want them frisking me. 😉

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