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Chicago Debates Merits of ShotSpotter Technology
theodp writes "After a week that saw more than 40 people shot and at least 4 killed, Chicago politicians and police are at odds on whether to implement ShotSpotter, a camera and acoustic sensor-based gunshot-location system that is designed to pinpoint a shooter's location within seconds. The Chicago Police Department opposes such a move, saying ShotSpotter wasn't reliable in an earlier trial and — at $250,000 for a square mile of coverage — is too expensive. The company says the system has dramatically lowered crime rates in cities across the country. ShotSpotter is currently deployed in two countries and 51 US cities and counties."
Well, if the Chicago police are saying "we tried it and it doesn't work", I'd listen to them rather than the company.
...and with it shall go the supposed evidence. The paltry statistic of 244 gunshots in a two month period vs. 177 in another does not indicate anything about supposed trends in gun crime. Furthermore, yearly gun crime is what is of importance, not a few weeks.
Or we could have reasonable gun control laws.
Guns are already illegal within the Chicago city limits. Guess those "reasonable gun control laws" aren't quite working out like you'd hoped, huh?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Anything that increases compound bow or crossbow homicides can't be bad.
I don't think they should have cameras, but the technology is sound- and it certainly is better use of tax money than where most money is going (all sorts of anti-terrorism crap.) The question: why is such a simple technology so hideously expensive? There should be little patentable in the field, given how old and obvious sonic triangulation is. The equipment is super simple- an embedded computer in an outdoor enclosure with a microphone...
Please help metamoderate.
Charge $300,000 per sq mile and kick $50k back to the police department for 'overtime related to training and special classes.' Don't monitor if the classes are performed or even necessary. Don't check if the system is used after implementation.
The police get funding - they win. The company gets cash - they win. The politicians get to look like they're doing something using cutting edge technology against crime which they can feature in their next election - they win.
It's the perfect solution! No one who matters (in the mind of our leaders) gets hurt.
It works great, or so I'm told. They're able to get cops to where the shooter fired within minutes- and in plenty of time to round up witnesses who swear they "saw nuttin".
There's been at least one drive by in my 'work' neighborhood, and about a dozen+ deaths within a mile. Two bullets in our building. One in the front door within 5 minutes of me entering it (now THAT will freak you out- come into work, forget something, go back to the car and the door has been shot).
Well, if the Chicago police are saying "we tried it and it doesn't work", I'd listen to them rather than the company.
Police aren't unbiased either. If a tool (or effective policing) pushes crime out of an area, you don't need as many police officers in that area, do you? And if it works in one part of the city, it'll probably work in others. That means layoffs. Let me know when you hit that stage of your life where you realize that the police have little incentive to effectively enforce the law.
Sorta similar to firefighters. Fire calls have dropped in the last 20-30 years to 1/4 of what they used to be; more sprinkler systems, better building and electrical codes, etc. We just don't need nearly as many firefighters these days. So rather than lay off firefighters (or reassign them to work in small rescue crews, or in ambulances as rescue techs) the city of Boston now sends out in many cases TWO fire trucks to any medical or vehicle crash call, putting unnecessary miles on expensive heavy equipment and running up fuel bills.
But, they get to look busy...
Please help metamoderate.
Let's see... $250 grand per square mile. What's it cost to obtain a silencer from the friendly neighborhood gun dealer?
After a dozen or so people get caught with this technology, I give it about a year before all the gangs in chicago start using silencers as standard equipment.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Not quite...
In Illinois, if you even want to TOUCH a gun, you need a FOID card (firearms owner ID).
In Chicago, all firearms must be registered, and no handguns can be registered after some date in 1982-ish (basically, you can have a shotgun or rifle, but can't own a pistol).
Open and concealed cary are basically banned in IL, unless you are retired police (in other words, Drew Peterson could conceal carry, but R. Lee Ermey couldn't).
All these restrictions are unconstitutional. Period.
I _DARE_ mayor Daley to produce copies of the perpetrators' FOID cards, and the registration of their firearms.
What's that? They don't have one?
Well, I for one am SHOCKED that someone who would shoot at another human being just because they felt like it, wouldn't at least make sure they could legally do so.
(Heavy sarcasm there).
As for the shotspotter system, I remember seeing examples of this about 12-15 years ago; it was highly touted for a bit, then kinda dissappeared...
It was combined with all the police cameras that were going up back then (just in bad neighborhoods, we swear... sorry, but now EVERY neighborhood is a bad one, so we need cameras everywhere).
The last part is not an exaggeration... next time you go through Chicago, look for little blue blinking LEDs on the lampposts... then ask yourself who won the cold war.
You're missing the point.
Gun control laws do nothing to stop criminals from carrying guns, but they do stop law abiding citizens from carrying guns.
If I'm just a regular guy who wants to carry a gun for defense purposes, I'm not going to do it if it's illegal.
If I'm planning to commit a felony with a gun, do I really care if having the gun itself is illegal?
The idea of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals entirely is laughable.
Handguns use 100 year old technology. Criminals want guns. It would be just as effective as prohibition:
Someone will set up a shop in their basement and start cranking out illegal guns at $1000 each for a massive profit.
That's if people don't take the easy route and smuggle them across the border.
And this doesn't even get into the humans rights side of gun ownership, or the fact that it is guaranteed in our constitution and very much a part of our national philosophy.
Life is too short to proofread.
my wife and her cousin were mugged in full view of police camera on Argyle street ("vietnamese town"), and the images from the camera on telephone pole were utterly useless. couldn't see under hat brim to see face, the perps know they can just keep their chin slightly down with a cap and they can rob, rape, and murder in camera shot. the percentage of crimes solved using those camera pictures is in the realm of statistical noise.
Good decent people own guns in illinois and have their FOID card, but they aren't the ones doing drive by shooting or holding up liquor stores or banks. But that idiot hypocrite Mayor Daley, who relies on armed people for protection, says gun ownership by good decent law-abiding people (the ones who don't have guns in chicago right now) having the means to defend themselves would mean an explosion of crime. what a moron, both my brothers live in states that allow concealed carry, and in both their cities of residence the crime rate has plummeted.
People killing people is a separate problem from firearms ubiquity. It is easy to legally purchase and carry a weapon in both Isreal and Switzerland, yet they don't have high gun crime rates. Every large survey of gun crime rates and gun control laws show very low correlation between the two.
No. That is a gross oversimplification. The point is that handguns are illegal in Chicago, yet last week there were 40 shootings. Let me repeat that. Last week there were 40 shootings in Chicago despite the fact that handguns are illegal in Chicago. This seems to me to be a good indication that gun control laws like those that Chicago has do not work. It's all very nice to say that gee, if we just outlawed guns then nobody would have them and no one would get shot, but last I checked, we don't live in a world populated with unicorns and faeries.
You'd think that Chicago, of all places, would understand the implications of prohibition. When alcohol was illegal it still flowed underground. Why would the politicians expect that making guns illegal would make the m go away? In fact, from where I sit it has made the situation worse, because the law abiding citizen, following the law, has no gun, but the criminal, not giving a fuck about the law, does.
Anecdotally, I live in a small town (approx' 20K people) in Arizona. More than half the population here has a handgun (I have 2), closer to 75% if you add rifles and shotguns. In the last 2 years there has been 2 murders, only one with a gun, and that involved a gang that chased someone and happened to catch up with them in our town.
As I said, this is anecdotal, but in my personal current experience, a high proportion of gun ownership does not lead to more shootings. In fact, it seems to me that more guns, at least here, leads to lower crime overall, which suggests to me that socio-economic and cultural issues are the actual problem and not the presence of "too many guns"
My overall point is that the gun issue is not as simple as a lot of gun control advocates would like to make them, and that in a city with strict gun control laws large numbers of shootings occur. In Chicago, with strict gun laws, the murder rate is 18 per 100,000 residents. In Phoenix, the murder rate is 10.5 per 100,000 residents, yet Chicago has a strict no-handgun law, and in Phoenix you can buy and carry a handgun with no permit. Since the murder rate in Chicago is 75% higher than Phoenix, I'd say that the laws in Chicago weren't working so good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
"with the response time and technology of the police nowadays that section of your constitution doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me"
WTF are you babbling about? Been watching too many cop shows methinks. :)
Unless you live next door to a police station, response time is still "reaction time", not "intervention/interdiction/prevention".
That means the cops show up to scrape your dead arse off the pavement if you lost the fight.
In my case, I lived far enough out that the cops couldn't find my house for more than a half-hour. The white trash crackheads partying on my perimeter road told my wife (I was deployed at the time) to piss off when she asked them to leave. That they didn't do more is likely because she was carrying a 5.56 Ruger Mini-14. She returned to the house, put a few rounds into the ground (NOT horizontally, no one was in danger) where they couldn't see the impact area but we could dig up the bullets if required), and they left rapidly never to return.
The sheriff was pleased, our neighbors ditto, and we got no more visitors. Beats going home to a fucked/dead wife and a looted house in my book.
BTW, the US can't be peaceful because it is too culturally and economically diverse. American subgroups have nothing in common, so the only way to keep society reasonably peaceful is to contain the most violent by force. Even the Coalition allows Iraqi heads of household to have one full-auto battle rifle because it is necessary in order to avoid being a victim.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."