Image via National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform.

We know that the sun rises in the east and water is wet. Somehow we discovered these facts without the benefit of expensive government-funded studies. The latest revelation: gang members, not guns, commit most of the crime in America’s cities.

Why, it’s almost like we’ve covered this at TTAG before.

Unfortunately, some the smartest people just haven’t made the connection between gangs and criminal violence yet, so the taxpayer dollars that were wasted spent to figure this out were so worth it.

In a shocking display of political incorrectness, a Biden administration National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform study found that “most gun violence is concentrated on a small number of very high risk young black males.”

Stop the presses. The next thing they’ll tell us is the cohort committing most of the violence with guns are gang members with who’d been in trouble with the law before.

Oh, wait.

WTOP News has the story . . .

The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform looked at the numbers for homicides and nonfatal shooting in D.C. in 2019 and 2020, and found that “most gun violence is tightly concentrated on a small number of very high-risk young Black male adults that share a common set of risk factors.”

Those factors include involvements in street crews, a previous criminal justice history and connection to a recent shooting. Often, they’ve been the victims of crime themselves. While the motive for the shooting “may not be a traditional gang war,” the report says, “often shootings are precipitated by a petty conflict over a young woman, a simple argument, or the now-ubiquitous social media slight.”

The story continues, giving some rough numbers behind crazy level of violence in D.C. But these crimes aren’t being carried out by thousands of bad guys. Instead, it’s the work of a few hundred, tops.

The homicide rate in D.C. rose by 18% in 2020 compared to 2019, the study found, and about 500 identifiable people are behind 70% of the 863 incidents involving gun violence. The studies also showed that about 200 people are driving a majority of these incidents at any one point in time.

More than 90% of victims and suspects in 2019 and 2020 were male and about 96% were Black.

The study also found that another 86% of victims and suspects have been involved with the criminal justice system and the average age of victims is 31, while the average age of suspects is 27 years old.

The study also reveals that — to no one’s surprise — the victims of this small number of career criminals are themselves overwhelmingly young, male, and black.

The victims and suspects of homicides and nonfatal shootings in the District of Columbia are primarily male, Black, and between the ages of 18-34. Nearly 92 percent of victims and suspects in homicides and 88 percent of victims and suspects in nonfatal shootings were male. About 96 percent of victims and suspects in both homicides and nonfatal shootings were Black, despite Black residents comprising only 46 percent of the overall population in the District (Table 1). Approximately 66 percent of homicide victims/suspects and 64 percent of nonfatal shooting victim/suspects were between the ages of 18-34, with a mean age of 29.5 and 29.8, respectively (Table 2). Across homicides and shootings, both victims and suspects are demographically similar overall.

In other words, the people most negatively affected by “social justice”-oriented policies — strict gun control laws, defunded police departments, decarceration, bail reform laws, and “progressive” prosecutors who don’t prosecute — are minorities themselves. The people politicians and advocates ostensibly want to help.

Given results like these, you’d think people would acknowledge that further restricting the rights of a hundred million or so lawful gun owners in America won’t do anything to solve the crime problem in cities like the District of Columbia. You’d think they’d talk about targeting the source of the problem, the couple of hundred bad actors in each metropolitan area, in order to make a measurable impact on the lives and safety of the city’s law-abiding residents.

How much safer would doing that make them, you ask? About 70% safer.

You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (Caroline Brehman/Pool via CQ Roll Call, File)

Instead, mayors like D.C.’s Muriel Bowser are more interested in funding pork barrel projects to shovel money to favored constituencies. Projects like the District’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and “violence interruptors.” Meanwhile, the sources of most of the city’s violent crime problems remain on the street.

It’s almost as if politicians like Mayor Bowser have no real interest in actually doing something to reduce the crime problems in their cities at all.

36 COMMENTS

  1. Never mind the gun the brick the bat the knife, etc…The truth is gangs with nothing but Godless demoCrap between their ears commit most crime. Solution? Flush the demoCrap.

  2. Government Study Finds Gang Members With Previous Arrests Commit Most Gun Crimes in Washington, DC

    Translated: Government Study Finds pro-gun people nailed it.

  3. YBMs commit most of the violent crime? Well, then, there’s only one thing to do — lock up the potential victims so that the perpetrators can’t get at them!

  4. I’m sure this report does not include the family description of these gangsters. Most came from broken homes. Raised by single mothers with no father. A policy of removing the father that was supported by the Libertarians Liberals and the Left. They disagreed with the Christians when they said a father’s love and discipline is necessary in the home.

    The best way to deal with this situation now is to take away home rule from the District of Columbia. And have it be managed by the US Congress. As it was for almost 200 years.

    This is a national issue. If the residents and the elected government leadership of the District of Columbia cannot take care of the nation’s capital, they have no right to stay in leadership. Washington D. C. with all its monuments and archives is the cultural center of the United States of America. It should be protected. Especially from the people who don’t care about it. But are elected to office in the district.

    And I don’t care what skin color they are. The vast majority of the Crime Victims are innocent people. Of all skin colors. They should be handing out CCW’s in the District of Columbia and lollipops. Let the local residents take care of business.
    It will cost the taxpayer a lot less.

    • “broken homes”? Is that REALLY the most accurate/appropriate description. Feel free to use accurate “pejorative/s” if it helps you be more accurate.

  5. “All of this is made possible and exacerbated by the wide availability of firearms and the culture of resolving conflicts through violence. This popular YouTube video provides a detailed explanation of one of DC’s primary neighborhood conflicts, including disturbing images of firearms with extended magazines3: Deadly War In DC: Simple City vs 37th – YouTube”

    One of their future solutions to the problem will be to go after YOUR guns and magazines.

  6. They’ll just keep wasting money and time in search of the obvious until they find that one unicorn situation to justify their surreal belief system and parade that one around as “settled science.” In the meantime patriarchy and institutional racism are to blame for hiding what they believe must be absolute truth from our eyes.

  7. The news media keeps mispronouncing gang violence as “gun violence.”
    Every time someone uses the words “gun violence,” tell them, “It’s pronounced gang violence.”

  8. Willing to bet that that applies to pretty much every city in the USA with a “gun violence” problem. Any evidence to prove it false?

  9. The problem is guns, and their proliferation. These gang members grew up in downtrodden hoods, born into gangland. It is not their fault at all. This is the fault of the system of oppression that is the United States, and it’s cisgender heteronormative white patriarchy. They did nothing wrong, except be born in the white man’s culture. The true problem is the availability of guns. Government needs to crack down, ban them, and round up all the country bumpkin white lumberjacks and January 6th them into a prison cell. Ideally, they should be chained together, where they are forced to sing songs, and perform intensive labor while provided very little sustenance.

    • The “problem is” the usual suspects and their lack of self-control not to mention the genetic predisposition to an IQ level at the low end.

    • Oh my freakin’ God, dacian the stupid! Could you have POSSIBLY piled more idiotic leftist jargon and tropes into that word vomit??

      Either you are off your meds, again, or you are really losing it.

      Pray tell explain why youngsters growing up in EQUAL OR WORSE poverty in rural areas don’t feel the need to act out violently and illegally in the proportions of their urban brethren??? Perhaps something to do with “culture”, you brainless t***???

      You are too stupid to insult. Go micturate up a cable.

  10. The money for this study was not wasted. Liberal politicians typically ignore studies by other than the “researchers” they hire to come to a predetermined conclusion. Studies are much harder to ignore when those same researchers go off script and tell the truth. Like the DOJ study conducted during a democratic party administration that concluded that the “assault weapons” ban had no discernible effect on crime.

    • The author is an idiot for peddling the ridiculous idea that this study was a waste of time and money. New research is just about always good, including this research that confirms what has previously been found. Anyone who believes otherwise is about as sensible as someone who thinks guns by themselves kill people.

      • So, you’ve been in a cave, I assume, and are unaware of the ongoing scandal in the “research” community over false data??

        You’ve now joined the exalted circle of “those too stupid to insult”. Go micturate up a cable. Have a nice day, moron!!

  11. Gee, who could have guessed the results of this study? What wisdom! So, how much did this brilliant work cost the American taxpayer?

  12. I guess this means they need to form some committees to think about forming a new department to “fix” this problem. They’ll need a building and plenty of staff which means they’re about to ask for more of your money to waste.

  13. GANG MEMBERS DON’T GIVE A HOOT RED OR BLUE , JUST ALL ABOUT RULE THE DRUG LAND AND STREET . LOCK THEM AND CARTEL BS PEOPLE UP OR BETTER YET HANG ‘EM HIGH .
    LET THEM ROT .

  14. Gee, street thugs, gang members, and drug gangs are causing the majority of the violent crime in the cities such as DC. Whodda Thunk it? And the same thugs, etc. will be using anything they can get their hands on as a weapon. As well as continue to kill each other over stupid crap such as social media insults, or who gets what corner to peddle their poison.
    But, of course, it’s always the white mans fault for these animals committing crimes and preying on their own neighborhoods. And it is the legal gun owners who are to blame for the black market, stolen, guns they are using. Never the fault of the criminal or the failed government programs that promote such poor decision making.

    • oldmaninAL,

      Never the fault of the criminal or the failed government programs that promote such poor decision making.

      That is a Progressive hallmark–problems are always someone else’s fault.

  15. … some the smartest people just haven’t made the connection between gangs and criminal violence yet …

    [Minorities who] politicians and advocates ostensibly want to help.

    … you’d think people would acknowledge that further restricting the rights of … lawful gun owners … won’t do anything to solve the crime problem in cities …

    It’s almost as if politicians … have no real interest in actually doing something to reduce the crime problems in their cities at all.

    * * * * * All of the above from the Article * * * * *

    I hope that everyone can see the trend which the above snippets make fairly obvious. Everyone, for various reasons, occasionally responds to the challenges of life in an unproductive manner. When an entity such as the Ruling Class always responds in a manner which is harmful to the Working Class, that is purposeful and malicious.

    We would be wise to recognize this and impress this upon as many people as possible.

  16. I’m gonna bet they don’t get their guns after background checks either.

    I bet they ignore all laws on the book.

    Just a guess.

Comments are closed.