In 1994, Rick Nevin was a consultant working for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development on the costs and benefits of removing lead paint from old houses. This has been a topic of intense study because of the growing body of research linking lead exposure in small children with a whole raft of complications later in life, including lower IQ, hyperactivity, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities.
But as Nevin was working on that assignment, his client suggested they might be missing something. A recent study had suggested a link between childhood lead exposure and juvenile delinquency later on. Maybe reducing lead exposure had an effect on violent crime too?
That tip took Nevin in a different direction. The biggest source of lead in the postwar era, it turns out, wasn't paint. It was leaded gasoline. And if you chart the rise and fall of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded gasoline consumption, you get a pretty simple upside-down U: Lead emissions from tailpipes rose steadily from the early '40s through the early '70s, nearly quadrupling over that period. Then, as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline, emissions plummeted.Gasoline lead may explain as much as 90 percent of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century. Intriguingly, violent crime rates followed the same upside-down U pattern. ...Mother Jones
Kevin Drum, a long-time presence in the blogosphere, now writes a blog at Mother Jones. And in Mother Jones this month Drum has a major article (excerpt above) on the lead in our gasoline and elsewhere as an important factor in the rise in crime rates -- as well as other societal and medical problems. At the time of this writing Drum is also being interviewed live at WNYC -- you can catch the audio here.
So, if we've taken the lead (or most of it) out of gasoline, what's the problem?
Well, lead remains in our atmosphere and is found, in significant quantities, in our soil.
Just this year, Tulane University researcher Howard Mielke published a paper with demographer Sammy Zahran on the correlation of lead and crime at the city level. They studied six US cities that had both good crime data and good lead data going back to the '50s, and they found a good fit in every single one. In fact, Mielke has even studied lead concentrations at the neighborhood level in New Orleans and shared his maps with the local police. "When they overlay them with crime maps," he told me, "they realize they match up." ...Mother Jones
In other countries, where lead is being removed from atmosphere and soil, crime rates are going down. Are the criminologists in the US sitting up and taking notice?
No. And, so far, no visible increase in attention to the continuing lead problem, the continuing gun problem, and the continuing mental healthcare problem.
Pro Publica has investigated state legislatures' responses to mass shootings in their states and details what they found. Bottom line:
ProPublica decided to take a look at what's happened legislatively in states where some of the worst shootings in recent U.S. history have occurred to see what effect, if any, those events had on gun laws.
We found that while legislators in Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, New York, Texas and Colorado sometimes contemplated tightening rules after rampage shootings, few measures gained passage. In fact, several states have made it easier to buy more guns and take them to more places....Pro Publica
How about my home state of Texas?
Texas: There's been no effort to tighten gun control in Texas since Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, 39, killed 13 and wounded 32 at a military processing center at Fort Hood in 2009.
In 2011, legislators passed two bills that gave gun carriers greater freedom to take their weapons to more places. One bill restricted employers from prohibiting guns from vehicles in parking areas and another allowed foster parents to carry handguns while transporting their foster children, as long as they are licensed carriers. ...Pro Publica
Yeah. But that's Texas and after all it was at a US military site. In New York, say, they'd be a lot smarter, right?
New York: After a mass shooting at an immigration services center in Binghamton, N.Y., where 13 people were killed and four were wounded, the state assembly entertained several bills on gun control. None passed. ...Pro Publica
For me, this is just further evidence of the extent to which the NRA, ALEC and the Koch Brothers, among many others on the radical right, have achieved and maintained a tight hold on state legislatures. And don't forget: these legislatures are where gerrymandering gets the fuel that ultimately drives federal elections.