Our Neighbor to the South - Mark Krikorian - The Corner on National Review Online
Man Bites Dog: “Yesterday (Thursday[October 29]) was the first day this year that not one homicide was reported in Cd. Juarez. The last time that there was a day without murder in the city was December 28, 2008.” Juarez is across the river from El Paso.
Back to Normal: “After over a day without murder in Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua, the crime has resumed. By Friday afternoon through Saturday morning, 10 people had been killed. The article goes on to give details of each of the murders that have raised the total in the city for this year to 2,105.”
This cannot be true. Guns are banned in Mexico, as illegal there as they are in Chicago.
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Yeh - like it says, “gun-free” Juarez is right across the river from El Paso (TX, U.S.A.) - must be a bunch of stray bullets from all those rabid, bitter “gun-clinger” Texicans…
Radley Balko reports that there were 18 murders in El Paso last year.
Hmm…he also says it’s “…one of the safest big cities in America.”
On a per-capita basis, he may be right.
He says the reason why is: A high percentage of the population is immigrants (he doesn’t specify, rather noticeably, whether they are legal or illegal immigrants - what’s your guess?).
But - if that’s true, then what’s up with Dearborn, Michigan? The population there is about one-third Arab, virtually all of which are fairly-recent immigrants (legal or illegal unspecified) - yet, the crime rate there is higher (on a per-capita basis) than in Juarez (which is about 40 to 50 times that of El Paso’s rate) - or for that matter, it’s substantially higher than the rate in Detroit, a much bigger city right next door to Dearborn.
Maybe…it depends on the type of immigrants involved?
Or, maybe - just maybe - (and this seems, somehow, much more likely) it’s something else altogether…like a difference in laws, and in the enforcement thereof -
Who knows? Maybe even the fact that El Paso is a Texas town - where, if you get shot at, you’re quite likely to be able to shoot back - since its entirely legal to own and to use a gun there for self-defense…
While, over in Juarez, in the “gun-free zone” of Mexico - ordinary citizens don’t have guns - at least, not legally - and the criminals know it.