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Comment by adamrezich | Hacker News Reader

Your theory of urban/rural bifurcation is overly reductive. My city had a population of about 40,000 in the 70s (when guns were left in racks in the backs of trucks in the high school parking lot)—it's about twice that today. (I did however just return from visiting my wife's hometown in northern Idaho, which has a population of about 500, and indeed I did not feel the need to lock my car, despite keeping a firearm inside of it.)

I don't care to propose any solutions here, especially around such politically-volatile topics, because I believe the actual changes that transpired and the reasons for why they did are worth acknowledging and investigating first.

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40,000 people live within a few miles of me. That isn't a city, that's a suburb or a town.

Also the leaving guns in vehicles thing could also be affected by another number here. And that is miles driven per capita and vehicles owned per household averages. That is you could have the same total number of thieves that steal guns, especially among those with more poverty, but as you increase the number of cars groups that could no longer afford them have them. Also the number of miles driven means the potential thieves are covering way more territory.

Anecdotally I heard about things like this in the late 80s and early 90s. Farmers were complaining that groups out of Chicago were running off with all the stuff they'd leave around all over the farm.

In addition starting in the mid 70s was a long recessionary period (stagflation) after decades of a good economy in the 60s that shook the US to the core.

I assure you there's quite the difference between a city (that even has “City” it its name!) of 80,000, and a town of 500. It's easy to see conflating the two as “high density population dweller ignorance” for anyone who has lived in or near all three (500, 80,000, 1M+).

I mean yea, I'm from bumfuk nowhere farmland where there was nothing close. Of course that meant a lot in the late 70s where you might get 3 channels on the TV. We were very disconnected from the world back then.

That's no longer true. Everyone has a cellphone pretty much everywhere. You don't think of hoodlum stuff while bored, you watch a livestream of it and think "I could do that too".

We live in a much different world now.

> actual changes that transpired and the reasons for why they did

Well go on then. Let's hear your theory out loud.

Feel free to assume whatever you'd like and ascribe whatever implicit outgroup labels you'd like as well.

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