By Dr. John Orlando
Violent crime has exploded in Burlington since 2020 to the point where most people I know will not go into City Hall Park, Battery Park and even Church Street anymore. Both the Progs and the mayor blame guns for the rise in crime, yet gun laws and ownership have not changed over the past two years. The people who call for gun control never ask whether it actually works. The facts show that it does not.
Studies show that there is no correspondence between gun laws and crime. States with the weakest gun laws, like Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, have the lowest violent crime, while states with the strongest laws, like New York, Illinois, and Maryland, have the highest violent crime.
It is also shown that gun ownership does not lead to more crime. Canada has a higher rate of gun ownership than the U.S., but lower violent crime. Nearly every home in Switzerland and Israel has a military rifle in it, but they have far lower crime rates than the U.S.
So what does contribute to crime? According to the FBI statistics, the variables affecting crime are:
- Population density and degree of urbanization.
- Variations in composition of the population, particularly youth concentration.
- Stability of the population with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors.
- Modes of transportation and highway system.
- Economic conditions, including median income, poverty level, and job availability.
- Cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics.
- Family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness.
- Climate.
- Effective strength of law enforcement agencies.
- Administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement.
- Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational).
- Citizens’ attitudes toward crime.
- Crime reporting practices of the citizenry.
Notice how gun control and gun ownership is not on the list, yet “Effective strength of law enforcement agencies,” “Stability of the population with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors” and “Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational)” are on the list.
This confirms what everyone in Burlington—except the Progs —already know. Since the Progs “Defund the Police” movement in 2020, crime has exploded in Burlington just as it has everywhere else that tried it. Except that all other cities were smart enough to roll this back when they saw what happened.
Also, the Progs have prevented the police from stopping vagrants from harassing people, and so Burlington has become a magnet for homeless people from New York and elsewhere. There are now no fewer than 7 hotels on Shelburne Avenue for the homeless, and Burlington Parks are effectively vagrant camps.
Plus, police have been removed from schools, meaning that teachers are now on their own if there is a violent incident. The rational was that black students do not want them, but this precisely the opposite of what needs to be done. Police and the black community need to interact with one another to improve relations, which is why community policing works so well. But the Progs are sending a message to the community to be anti-police. Notice how “Citizens’ attitudes toward crime” is on the list?
The Progs will never take responsibility for the mess they created. Only when real leadership comes to Burlington will the situation return to what it was before the Progs took over.
The author, a Williston resident, is a Ph.D., editor of The Teaching Professor, and author of 250 professional articles.