Written for Bacon’s Rebellion by James A. Bacon

Quite the lively time in Little Chicago, er, Portsmouth, yesterday. According to WCEV:

A woman was shot on Seventh Street Thursday morning, two men were shot near The Connelly apartments sometime in the afternoon, a woman was shot on Staunton Avenue around 9 p.m., and lastly, a man sustained a life-threatening injury after a shooting near Alden Avenue and Emmons Place.

I’m baffled. I keep hearing from the smartest people that “violent crime” is down in Virginia…. And if it’s not, it’s the fault of too many guns.

Yeah, guns are part of the problem, and I’m open to hearing what we can do about them. But there’s a lot more going on here. Social order in Portsmouth is collapsing. It’s like the days of the crack epidemic… except we don’t have crack to blame it on.

— JAB