Liberals and crime spikes

AFTER THE sweet tea was poured but before the tomato soup arrived, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, Bill White lifted his shirt-tail to reveal the rubberised grip of a .38 revolver. “Everyone’s got one these days,” he says. Over lunch, he and two other residents of Buckhead, the wealthy northern section of Atlanta, swap stories: packs of cars blocking intersections for illegal street races, would-be thieves casing houses, neighbours too frightened to leave their homes. Lenox Square, an upscale mall, installed metal detectors after a spate of shootings. Mr White is head of fundraising for the Buckhead Exploratory Committee—a group of residents who have organised to push for Buckhead’s independence from Atlanta, driven, he explains, by three factors: “crime, crime and crime”.

As of May 16th, murders were up by 59% in Atlanta compared with the same period in 2020. Rapes, aggravated assaults and thefts from and of cars are also well above levels in 2020. Nor is this just an Atlanta problem. Nationally, the spike in murders that began in 2020—according to data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, homicides in American cities rose by 33% from 2019 to 2020—shows no sign of abating. This is a problem first, of course, for the people living in the neighbourhoods where much of this violence takes place. But it also poses a problem...