new gun owner training class teacher school armed
Clark Aposhian, president of Utah Shooting Sport Council, demonstrates with a plastic gun, rear, while Joanna Baginska, a fourth-grade teacher from Odyssey Charted School, in American Fork, Utah, aims a 40 cal. Sig Sauer during concealed-weapons training for the teachers in West Valley City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Here’s a fun fact using data published recently in an article at stacker.com listing states with the most single-parent households.

As always, correlation is not causation. That said, not one state of the ten ranked lowest for single-parent households has a homicide rate above the national average. However, all of the top ten highest states for single-parent households have homicide rates above the national average…except for Alaska.

I used 2021 CDC data on overall homicide rates by state.

The section in the middle labeled “total” is the overall US figures.

The process in play here goes something like this:

Government: Pass a welfare program and policies that encourage single-parent households.

Government: Prosecute a ridiculous “war on drugs” that lands a huge number of fathers in prison, creating even more single-parent households.

Result: Crime unsurprisingly rises in the places most affected by the government’s misguided policies.

Government: ‘You’ll need to give up your guns so we can make the country safer.’

Remember this the next time a politician announces that we have to do something about “gun violence”…and then calls for enacting still more failed gun control laws.

 

Konstadinos Moros is an Associate Attorney with Michel & Associates, a law firm in Long Beach that regularly represents the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) in its litigation efforts to restore the Second Amendment in California. You can find him on his Twitter handle @MorosKostas. To donate to CRPA or become a member, visit https://crpa.org/.

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73 COMMENTS

  1. Bottom line: single parent households may be correlated with violent crime, but a significant cause of single parent households is government.

    I always favor treating causes, not symptoms.

  2. A “ridiculous” war on drugs?

    This topic needs some review. Or maybe a full reset. After all, it seems a lot of people want – and advocate for – their weed and privacy, but a lot of people are also zombie-walking in metros from Fentanyl. Out of one side of the mouth “muh freedoms to do wuts I want with muh body!”, and out of the other side ” San Fran is a druggie wasteland due to Leftist craziness!”

    Pick a side of the argument and stick with it. Either we need to leave everyone to do what they want (libertinism), or we work to protect our communities (so-called War on Drugs).

    The problem that threads thru everything in our lives is actually a breakdown in our society, fomented by power-hungry Leftists and starting within the nuclear family. There are two genders, period, and children need a strong, loving, dedicated Mother & Father to raise them to be industrious, determined, patient, kind, faithful, honorable, and trustworthy.

    Without this, all the other conversations we can have are white noise and will never be fixed, and Government will continue to move on to fill the void.

    • Haz,
      It may be that the war on drugs is ridiculous because
      of methods, not concepts.

      Gang- bangers are not going to make great Dads or Moms. Other folk going to jail rather than alternate sentencing (regardless of race….geez!) perpetuates the single-parent problem. Open boarders makes the war on drugs ridiculous. Cocaine soaked Senators, Congresscritters, and beaureaucrats make the war on drugs ridiculous. The war is ridiculous in strategy and tactics and its victims are often not the originators.

    • Haz, I do not understand what you have against the Bill of Rights. Everybody knows a N Korean style police state will “solve” the drug problem. Assuming the Dictator of the moment really wants to do that, which is as likely as winning powerball 10 weeks running.

      As to the War on Drugs “protecting communities”, that verges on outright hallucination. The Good Old Days when nobody locked their doors was when all drugs were legal, over the counter.

      How can you not know that historical FACT?

      • “The Good Old Days when nobody locked their doors was when all drugs were legal, over the counter.”

        You mean back when everyone understood we had a Christian culture? You mean back when people knew right from wrong (even if you weren’t a Christian or a practicing one)? Our liberal culture has now progressed beyond that. Objective morality is now a theory. It’s a cultural problem.

        • Sort of – the Pledge, “One nation under God”, mass media evangelism. are all more modern iirc. That said, yeah, I think that is right in the sense of public discourse. Then again, Bierce happened, lol…

          I think in private, people might have been more “diverse” than now. Every little town had a whorehouse, there were no cams/ microphones, and local and regional politics could get very weird.

          One way to get a sense of the times – get an unabridged copy of the 1897 Sears Roebuck catalog – some real eye openers. Another is YouTube (old street footage from 1910 or so) zero not a fat person in sight – lots of tall Americans. And copies of old newspapers of course.

        • The United States has never been a Christian nation.

          “Sort of – the Pledge, “One nation under God”

          That bit about under God wasn’t added until after most drugs were made illegal, when the pledge was originally written heroin and marijuana were both legal.

          I am always amused by the history illiterates on this website, they are always so sure of themselves, hilarious!

        • Speaking of history illiterates…Hello Miner. The USA has always been a Christian nation until just recently. It was never a theocracy. It was never codified in federal law. You were free to worship or not. But it was a Christian nation. Individual states codified state religions. Do you think the official state religions were Islam or Judaism? Hinduism? Buddhism? Some of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in the country are churches, even in DC and NYC. They were very much Christian cities.

          Everyone knew it. Everyone understood right from wrong even if they didn’t always act that way. There’s a reason Bill Clinton made sure the press filmed him leaving church with a bible in his hand on Sundays. Obama said he was a Christian when he ran. The Puppet says he’s a Catholic. There’s a reason for that whether you like it or not.

        • “But it was a Christian nation“

          While many Americans did indeed practice the Christian biblically-directed slavery, America has never been a Christian nation.

          Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli:
          “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

          The Treaty of Tripoli was ratified by the United States Senate unanimously without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of President John Adams.

        • “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”

          Miner, why are you responding to my comment without even reading it. Or is it that your reading comprehension is subpar? I already said:
          “The USA…was never a theocracy. It was never codified in federal law. You were free to worship or not.” You have a brain, Miner (I assume). You should try using it sometime.

          I love how you try to have it both ways. “America had slavery because it was a Christian country. America was never a Christian country.”

          Yes, America had to deal with the Religion of Peace way back in the 1700s. We tried to appease them. We even agreed to pay them lots of money. We tried to say we have no quarrel. Don’t attack us because we’re known to be Christians. Look, America isn’t officially a Christian country. Hey, maybe there are some Muslims there. Just ask Miner. Please stop killing us and enslaving us just because we aren’t Muslims.

          After they captured you, they would try to make you convert to Islam. How did our attempt at appeasing the mostly peaceful terrorists work out, Miner?

      • It is not a “historical fact”, that’s why. It’s a myth the legalization crowd has told itself for years. Wherever there was high drug use, legal or not, there was high crime in general. Show me a time in history where that wasn’t the case.

        Haz’s point is valid: there is something about society as a whole that’s completely different than it was 100 years ago. Drugs may not be the direct cause of it, but it is a symptom of that phenomenon. Denying that is laughable.

        For the legalization folks: you got what you want already in places like San Francisco; if all hard drugs were traded openly and without government interference, we’d have that all over the country.

    • Haz,

      Perhaps there is a “middle ground” that you are not giving sufficient consideration to??? If, as you claim, libertarians are basically libertines, your argument is not totally invalid. But, what if, just for sh*ts and giggles, we assume a different approach?

      Sure, you have the right to pollute your body with whatever the hell you want (once you are an adult; kids having access to crack or meth is just as stupid as kids having access to voluntary genital mutilation (i.e., “gender-affirming care”)). What I do NOT have is any duty or obligation to “affirm” your choices. Choices come equipped with consequences. Oh, you can’t afford your expensive cocaine or math habit (in part because your inability to do common tasks while under the influence of your drug of choice makes you unemployable)???

      Sounds like a “you” problem, chief.

      I don’t have the right to stop another adult from ruining their life, if they so choose. I do have the right to require them not to interfere in mine. What they want to do with their lives is their business. They can’t take care of their kids? Take their kids away. They can’t keep a job? Sucks to be them, dunnit?

      I don’t claim the right to “make you” act the way I think you should, so that means the CONSEQUENCES of your choices are your problem, and your problem alone (and I am entitled to use whatever means, up to and including deadly force) to KEEP you from trying to make them my problems.

      I don’t see why that is so complicated. A political analogy would be, I don’t have, or wish, the right to keep any idiot so-called “adult” from voting for the Senile Serial Child Molester (yeah, MajorLiar, I’m lookin’ at YOUR sorry @$$!!). I also have no obligation to hire that idiot, or do business with him/her, or sell property to them.

      EVERY time humans substitute their personal ‘feelz’ for the freedom of another person to personal agency, the cure is always worse than the disease. What we do have is the right to force the decider to SOLELY bear the burden of their choices, and the consequences thereof.

      • Heh! I didn’t realize a “math habit” could be so expensive; pencils, paper, chalk, and chalkboards seem cheap.

        Obviously, I meant “meth”.

        • Meth is expensive because it is illegal. Ditto heroin, pot and coke…

          Deflate the drug market, eliminate the cartels and bury the self-appointed casualties.

          Let the sober rule.

      • “genital mutilation”

        But you are OK with religious-based general mutilation?

        Such as the Judeo Christian ritual genital mutilation routinely practiced in America?

        • Liar69er, for someone who often criticizes others for making remarks about genitalia —

          your off-topic comment refers to — genitalia.

          Isn’t there a movie theatre in your town that could use a good projectionist?

        • Circumcision is so common in the US, it’s no longer mostly done for religious purposes, unlike removing breasts from healthy teenage girls which your religion calls for. Are you against that? You should be.

      • This assumes that drug users have no effect on others. It’s wrong, 100%. Family members, friends, neighbors are ALL affected by drug use. Explain to the homeowners in San Francisco that the piles of feces and used needles have no effect on them. Explain to parents of a drug addict that their child’s choices have no direct affect on them.

        We don’t live in a vacuum. Things we do have an effect on others.

        • You don’t understand that the needles, feces and homelessness are consequences of inflation? As in, 1$ worth of heroin (by cost of production) costs 200-300$ on the street? At least?

          When I was there (1969), drug merchants operated openly. No change since, just ever more poisonous. You see the damned results, so stop digging.

          Consider educating yourself, while you are at it.

    • Part of the void is that the .gov / Left so carefully disjoints freedom / personal choice from duty / responsibility.
      If they want the freedom to take lethal drugs, they need to be allowed / required to accept the consequences and not receive care or support for their voluntarily acquired condition(s).
      This concept used to be called “Outlawry”, where a person who refused to follow the laws of civil society was declared outside the protection of those laws, and that person had no rights under the law which they had denied.

  3. quote———-Government: Pass a welfare program and policies that encourage single-parent households.——quote

    A simplistic view of a complex problem. Not only is there a high divorce rate which has zero to do with what one can get on welfare which by the way is not much. The Reagan propaganda that welfare queens pick up there welfare checks while driving cadillacs was a ridiculous and racist piece of propaganda that not even the unwashed believed except for the far right who ate it up.

    As a matter of fact welfare programs that “could include” aid to working mothers has been blocked consistently by the skinflint Republicans who always make a bad situation even worse and they always end up being their own worst enemies by causing taxes to go up not down. When women have no affordable child care they cannot work and stay on welfare. It’s not rocket science except to the minds of the Neanderthal Republicans.

    quote———-Government: Prosecute a ridiculous “war on drugs” that lands a huge number of fathers in prison, creating even more single-parent households.——-quote

    That program was started under Tricky Dick Nixon who like most Republicans made a bad situation even worse. Rather than fund European style drug programs (proven to work) he chose to jail people driving up taxes far more than if the people hooked on drugs would have received free Socialist drug treatment programs. Again it’s not rocket science and the Socialist European programs have proven far more successful and way less costly.

    quote———Government: ‘You’ll need to give up your guns so we can make the country safer.’——-quote

    European and Asian gun control has resulted in way lower homicide and mass murder rates that is Historical fact. In Capitalvania where life is considered cheap and expendable anyone can buy a second hand gun no questions asked and anyone can own a weapon of war with a high capacity magazine which the mass murderers prefer to use. I ask you could the maniac Steven Paddock have killed 62 people and crippled 420 people in seconds with a bolt action rifle. The answer of course is no despite the rantings of the far right.

  4. “Either we need to leave everyone to do what they want (libertinism), or we work to protect our communities (so-called War on Drugs).”

    It can be argued, as in the case of other wars, that the “War on Drugs” uses tactics and strategies that have been in large part ineffective. Perhaps we could shift the focus somewhat, away from the punishment of the end user and concentrate more on the suppliers and distributors.

    In the prosecution of a literal war, it’s not the side that kills the most soldiers and civilians that wins — it’s the side that takes out the production facilities and infrastructure.

    • Like Carlin said, start executing bankers and this problem will go away quick. When you can have orgs like JP Morgan or HSBC complicing in laundering vast sums of money and getting nothing but a slap on the wrist you’re in trouble. It also says nothing of white coated heroin dealers who have so far made piles of cash but not really paid a lot of consequences that are meaningful. Throwing a few of them in a hole for a few years would probably help things out too.

      • “Get tough on dope!”

        Yeah, that and just say no, right?

        End Drug Prohibition or die a cartel slave – or in a police state.

        • End all life saving measures from first responders for overdoses as well. Their choice to use so let them die.

      • HSBC is known as “the cartels bank” for a reason. They even installed extra large cash drawers to further facilitate their customers. And who owns HSBC? The CCP.

  6. The super-rich, super-powerful criminal problem is what makes the addiction problem unmanageable.

    You want less of something, let the government do it, is the saying.

    So nationalize the markets that support organized crime. You would think that would make the commies happy, but I bet they squawk louder than anybody.

    In 1900, we had zero druglords, cartels, mafias, smugglers, pushers and corrupt drug cops. The Godfathers were squabbling over who sold hotdogs on what street corner…

    • XZX,

      “In 1900, we had zero druglords, cartels, mafias, pushers, and corrupt drug cops.”

      The Opium Wars just called, and they would like a word with you.

      Nice fantasy, dude, but . . . nah.

      • ^^^ nice lameass bullshit, dude, but nah

        I take it you are Chinese and did not realize this is an American (READ BILL OF RIGHTS) based discussion….

        So solly…

        }:D

        • You.

          In 1900, we had zero druglords, cartels, mafias, pushers, and corrupt drug cops. You could get opium mail order or at any drugstore.

          Not a coincidence.

      • Where our granddaddys figure out, for the good of society, that narcotics were bad. As were hookers, gangs, and other vices.

    • “In 1900, we had zero druglords, cartels, mafias, pushers, and corrupt drug cops.”

      Opium was a major problem back then.

        • Just say no in Mexico, they chop you up, put you in a trash bag, let your mom sort through it. After some time in the sun.

          But opium was a “major problem”. They keep cancer patients comfortable with morphine in places in Africa – total cost $.21/day.

          Wake up, please.

  7. “Government: Prosecute a ridiculous ‘war on drugs’ that lands a huge number of fathers in prison, creating even more single-parent households.”

    So the imprisoned fathers, if they actually committed drug offenses, bear no responsibility, eh? What happened to, the only dope you been smoking is you?

      • I don’t live in Mexico (although my wife is from “Parador”) and I make no argument regarding the legality of drugs. My argument is one of personal responsibility. We always have choices, and it is not wise to separate consequence from choice.

        • Lots of folks globally have to do what the local cartel/mafia/gang boss says, or die.That often includes becoming an addict. Even stateside.

          Consequences emanate from choice in a *free* society.

  8. “The problem that threads thru everything in our lives is actually a breakdown in our society, fomented by power-hungry Leftists”

    One of their first and most powerful moves was DRUG PROHIBITION, which created a criminal class of unprecedented wealth and power.

    “There are two genders, period, and children need a strong, loving, dedicated Mother & Father to raise them to be industrious, determined, patient, kind, faithful, honorable, and trustworthy.”

    That culture was created when ALL DRUGS were completely legal and a life of crime was not a path to works domination. Virtuous people had full access to dangerous drugs, and made good choices – and raised strong families. Those who did not, died quietly.

    How. Can. You. Not. Know. This???

    • It’s one facet, but not how you think. Drug USE is a symptom of the breakdown. If the breakdown hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t need to be talking about this because people wouldn’t be dying of fentanyl, meth and crack by the thousands.

      The legality of drugs is NOT the issue here. It’s obviously your bugaboo, however.

      • Factually incorrect.

        1) DRUG use has ALWAYS been ongoing.

        2) It is Prohibition that has spawned the toxins people use now, not to mention the near-omniscient criminal organizations.

        Do you really think people would be using xylazine if heroin was legal? Do you really think heroin is significantly more expensive to produce than aspirin?

    • Perhaps she has her target sighted and is ready to fire.

      It bothers me more that her head is tilted forward, although it indicates that she is aiming.
      Maybe that is more comfortable for her.

      • Take a closer look at the venue. She’s not at a range, in fact she appears to be in a meeting room with dozens of seated people around and behind her. Perhaps she and the instructor have verified that her pistol is not loaded, is pointed in a safe direction, and she’s practicing or demonstrating dry fire, and those in charge have successfully kept all live ammunition out of the room, but @stylin19’s is a completely legitimate and reasonable question.

  10. we have known for decades that the crime among intact Black families is roughly the same as intact white families, Hispanic families, mixed families, whatever. Families are the key.
    This is why the Democrats declared war on Black families under Johnsons War on Poverty.

    • It’s substantially closer but different enough to be relevant to planning and policy making. Upper income intact black family is roughly the same level of criminal/childhood delinquency rates as lower income whites (went with a SAT score study). Probably would even out with a generation or two of intact families were promoted and fewer criminals were heavily concentrated in areas that black families tend to live. Will be interesting to see similar studies out of the west coast over the next decade to see if it applies to whites asians and hispanics as well.

    • Legal Ny_ger_ian* immigrants are much more likely to have advanced degrees than the typical American. Legal Ny_ger_ian* immigrants out-earn white Americans. They’re also more likely to keep their family intact. Guess what? It isn’t a color problem. It’s a cultural problem. Family-oriented black immigrants come to America and thrive because they weren’t told by Democrats that they would be nothing without Democrats “protecting” them. They were only told to work hard for the American dream.

      *avoiding moderation

      • Pretty much the case with all the upper crust of any countries’ immigrants. The regression to the mean is the longer term concern as they assimilate and intermix.

        • Yet the US remains overpopulated with unassimilated “immigrants”. I care not their income level. GO HOME. Fix your cesspool using the US as a model.

          HINT: Adopt the US Constitution and Bill of Rights as your 1st action.

        • Neiowa you know that we cannot do that. On one end of the power holding spectrum they need the cheap labor to maintain the illusion of a functional society with affordable luxury. On the other we need new poor debt slaves to prop up our financial and political systems and replace native born populations that are not desirable due to having enough wealth to question why they should pay for invaders. The “new americans” are here to stay and you are (insert current shaming accusation here)ist for suggesting that we should enforce immigration laws let alone assert any self preservation of our culture.

        • The immigration issue is another problem that I wasn’t even discussing. I was only calling out the Democrat lie of racism holding black people down. It’s Democrats holding them down. White supremacy, etc. is a vicious lie. All you have to do is look at the data from educated black immigrants with intact families. I didn’t even mention the Asians. All of these groups make more money and are more likely to have intact families than white Americans. The low IQ and distracted sheep don’t seem to notice, so they fall for the propaganda. Hello again Miner.

  11. The study would be a whole lot more insightful if the Author looked at specific zip codes and not whole states. Saranac Lake is going to have negligible violent crimes compared to Buffalo NY. Breaking it down to zip codes would show some mall areas that have exponentially greater crime rates that skew averages.

    • FL is listed as 12th (per the number in parentheses, although 53, 54 and 55 are also listed), three spaces above the “Totals” line. I missed it, too.

  14. Anyone else notice that virtually all the States with high murder rates correspond with liberal urban areas disproportionately populated by America’s most dysfunctional and violent demographic? The thug life is a health hazard.

  15. As in football, fight the pressure. When politicians pressure We The Little Peeps in one direction, fight back , resist like Hell, ’cause it ain’t in yo’ best interest.

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