Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxr.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck From: stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Kennesaw/Morton Grove crime stats for 1983 vs 1982 Message-ID: <842@ihuxr.UUCP> Date: Tue, 17-Jan-84 15:51:09 EST Article-I.D.: ihuxr.842 Posted: Tue Jan 17 15:51:09 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jan-84 07:30:58 EST Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 39 The following is a full copy of a Chicago Tribune editorial, printed 1/13/84. It is reprinted without permission. I have added no comments of my own, though it was hard to resist. ******************************************************************************** NOW DON'T LAUGH ABOUT THIS It is wrong to laugh when somebody else trips and falls flat. We'll feel terrible about this. Still... Kennesaw, Ga., won attention early in 1982 by passing a strange law requiring residents to keep guns in their homes. The idea was partly to make Morton Grove, Ill., look foolish; Morton Grove had agitated gun lovers throughout the country by banning firearms, and Kennesaw's city fathers thought their stunt would discourage more laws like that. They also seemed sure that having lots of guns would reduce crime. The results are now in. Between 1982 and 1983 crime in Kennesaw increased by 9 percent; no other city in Georgia's Cobb County showed an increase. Most of the growth (from 160 crimes in 1982 to 174 last year) was in property crimes, mostly thefts. But there was also one armed robbery and one rape, representing a 100 percent increase for the year in those crimes. In Morton Grove, by the way, crimes involving handguns decreased in the same period, from 10 to 4. Told of the crime rate, Kennesaw Mayor Darvin Purdy gave the standard response of gun lovers confronted with statistics. He said, "I don't believe it." Try, Mr. Mayor. Try. -- ________ ( ) Don Stanwyck @( o o )@ 312-979-3062 ( || ) Cornet-367-3062 ( \__/ ) ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck (______) Bell Labs @ Naperville, IL