Truth

Was a largely failed drug education program.......much the same as all drug education programs.......

Overwhelmingly, crime is down in every venue.   Yeah, there are problem areas, but even in most of those violent crime is much lower than it was in the 70's, for instance. The Uniform Crime Report is pretty extensive, and collects data from EVERY jurisdiction in the country.  If you don't participate the fines/sanctions are big.......the data is  absolutely as good as it can be.

Agree that location is everything, but here in Colorado for instance, there has been so much development over the past few decades (and I've been here through it all), that there wouldn't even be good juristictional data for many areas around the metro Denver Area.  For instance, Douglas County 15 years ago was barely even a blip on the population screen, while now it is huge.  

I still would stand by overall crime trends.  In places even like NYC, the redistribution of populations thorughout the boroughs has changed significantly over time.  What is the "hip" place to live vs redeveloped hot spots change all the time.

It is interesting that violent crime has decreased over the past couple decades.  My thought after reading this article (and other articles and studies) is that violent crime is less about the manner and more about the circumstances.  Developing effective ways to deal with mental illness and drug related crime is much more important than trying to restrict firearms, IMHO.  

I think it's interesting too.....and it'll be even more interesting to see how it plays out.  It's one thing to get beat up when you're 40 or 50 if an argument gets physical, but I'm not so sure I'd be willing take a beating at 70 if I had a way to defend myself.  That being said, I still think it's stupid/immature/ridiculous to let an argument get to the physical point, but I see it happen all the time.