Cognitive Dissonance: Mysterious Drop in Crime May Be Linked to Small-Scale Efforts

Here's an interesting little article I ran across and decided to look into a little more:

Mysterious Drop in Crime May Be Linked to Small-Scale Efforts


What's interesting is the author quotes a criminologist Philip J. Cooke as mystified by a trend of crime rates plunging precipitously over the last 20 years.

He attributes the decrease in crime to private security. More money spent on security guards translates into less crime.

Well, I smelled some B.S. here so I just Googled our friend "Philip J. Cooke" and found he is the author of many gun control, anti gun articles and papers and is considered " the nation's foremost authority on gun control".

He perpetuates the "Currently the 40 percent or so of all sales that are conducted informally, at gun shows or elsewhere, are not subject to the federal requirement for a background check." myth which is a stale claim repudiated nicely here The stale claim that 40 percent of gun sales lack background checks.

Since he can't bring himself to realize that guns sales are increasing and crime is going down.

That crime is higher in states with the greatest gun control laws

He is in a state of cognitive dissonance.

Now he is grasping at straws.


Here is a fun article:

Study Shows Brady Bill Had No Impact on Gun Homicides

Why back in 2003 he states:

"Cook said the real problem is the law's "gaping barn door" for unregulated sales, mainly at gun shows, but no one knows how many guns are bought with false IDs or exchanged privately, to say nothing of those being stolen."

And he repeats this ten years later even though this "fact" has been clearly debunked.

My conclusion is he is milking the system and earning a living sucking up to Michael R. Bloomberg which which he "co-wrote" a book called "Reducing Gun Violence In America" which is  a compilation of all his logically consistent but illogical arguements.