78 homicides reported this year in D.C.

“The number of 2012 killings in the District of Columbia stands at 78 and is on pace to finish lower than 100 for the first time since 1963, police records show.”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/dc-pace-fewer-100-homicides-2012-17791025

Back in the 1990s, the district had more than 500 people killed just about every year.

So what happened?

City councilman and former mayor/crack cocaine user/convict Marion Barry blames the reduction of murders on “gentrification” – more people with jobs and money moving into neighborhoods that used to have high, really high, unemployment and high, really high, drug usage and robberies and car jackings and weed-grown vacant lots …

The former mayor doesn’t like “gentrification.” More people with jobs moving in means people who backed Barry moving out.

Back in the day (1990s), a friend who lives in D.C. said crime wasn’t so bad. “I was mugged and my house was broken into, and there was a drug dealer shootout in the vacant lot across the street. But overall, the crime is not that bad.”

He was with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam and has a Purple Heart, so maybe a mugging and a shootout aren’t all that noticeable.

What is noticeable is fewer than 100 people killed in D.C.

Oh, yeah, there was the Supreme Court decision that residents could arm themselves, just like the Constitution says.

Like governments, criminals prefer an unarmed citizenry. Except themselves.