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In a discussion about gun violence—and the shootings last week across the country in which people mistakenly went to the wrong house, opened the wrong car door, or drove up the wrong driveway and were shot—Anthony from Albany called in to my SiriusXM program.
He said he lived not far from where a 20-year-old woman who killed recently when she and her friends mistakenly drove into the driveway of a man who came out with a gun and shot at the car. He also said he was a gun owner.
At first I didn’t know where he was coming from, but soon it became clear: We were too focused on these shootings, he said, and not focused on urban crime.
Of course, the Kansas City shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his brothers, occurred in a city.
But we know what Anthony was really trying to focus on:
… Sadly, we start cherry picking the the incidents that kind of meet certain areas. I'll give you an example. What happened in Washington County [New York], which is like 20 minutes from me, was horrific with that teenager who was turning around in the driveway right through the area very well.
Horrific. So was the young man who was going in the wrong house. Both of them were tragic, but equally tragic. Look what happens in our city streets each and every weekend at proportions far greater than those of these two individuals. And I'm not dismissing their deaths. They're all horrible. But we don't like to talk about the other ones. The children get mowed down by gang activity every single week.
I had to jump in at that point and explain that statistically, there’s more crime and higher murder rates in red states than blue states, both in rural areas and in cities.
"Well, actually, Anthony, proportionately, it's just not true," I responded. "It's not happening at the same rate. It is much more dangerous to live in rural Oklahoma than in New York City. Do you know that? It is much more dangerous to be living in rural Oklahoma or in Columbus, Ohio, or Cincinnati than New York City."
He then asked me for statistics, as he couldn’t believe that to be true, and I just had to tell him, "Google it," since, "I don’t have time for you."
I know—it was harsh.
I should, as a radio host, give a caller the facts. It’s just that I’ve spent weeks going over the statistics and they’re now all over the place and he could find them.
And in truth, I did eventually send him in the direction of some sites, which are easy to find, that show that the 25 states Trump won have higher murder rates than the 25 states Biden won for 20 years. But it does become tiring. And even after I told him of a site to go to, he still didn’t believe me:
But what you're doing is you're comparing New York State to certain cities. Well, New York State land mass is huge. New York City, when you start looking at their crime, you are 100% incorrect in saying there's a dramatic drop in crime, crime and violent crime in almost every category in the last two years in New York City is up.
Um, no. You can compare New York City to any city or rural area in Oklahoma or Ohio, and New York City is safer.
I eventually just had to tell him: "I have the facts and you don't. You just admitted you don't have the facts. I've given you websites. Go and play Google. I don't have time for you now."
Too hard? Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
Upstate New York man can't believe crime is higher in red America