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Murderous Immigrant Hordes
Apr. 26th, 2010 07:57 pmI was looking into Arizona's appalling anti-immigration law, and I decided to get a fair-and-balanced perspective by reading this FOX News roundtable transcript. It was pretty unenlightening, as one would expect, with four conservatives playing pinata on the sole liberal but without anything close to a real argument.
Anyway, there was some talk about "increased killings along the border," and I thought a look at Arizona's crime statistics were in order:
It's true that this doesn't include 2009 data, and it isn't limited to "the border," but still: If there's been a violent crime wave of epic proportions, I'm sure as heck not seeing it. It's almost as if this has nothing to do with crime, and everything to do with right-wing dog-whistle politics. Shocking, I know.
Anyway, there was some talk about "increased killings along the border," and I thought a look at Arizona's crime statistics were in order:
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| Violent Crime (per 100,000) | 513.3 | 504.4 | 512.0 | 501.4 | 482.7 | 447.0 |
| Murder (per 100,000) | 7.9 | 7.2 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.4 | 6.3 |
It's true that this doesn't include 2009 data, and it isn't limited to "the border," but still: If there's been a violent crime wave of epic proportions, I'm sure as heck not seeing it. It's almost as if this has nothing to do with crime, and everything to do with right-wing dog-whistle politics. Shocking, I know.
