There are many big cities known for an exceedingly high murder rate, that are therefore proud whenever they see that their murder rate has gone down. The thing that is not taken into account, far too often, when it comes to lethal or almost lethal violence upon another, is that the medical doctors and medical facilities within America, for people who are trauma victims, contain some of the most competent medical doctors, medical personnel, as well as state-of-the-art equipment that provides those that would die without such aid, a much better chance to live. Indeed, the sooner that an emergency vehicle can arrive at a shooting, and take the necessary means to do what they can to sustain that victim on the way to the hospital or trauma center, even those with catastrophic injuries have a reasonable chance of survival. In other words, not everybody who is shot has been shot in an execution-type manner, and therefore the wound(s) that they have sustained, though often serious, will with competent and robust medical attention, provide a saving of their life; and therefore, in crime situations, since they did not die, they would not count as a murder victim, though without such aid, they probably would have died.
We read at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov that back in 2002, they stated “Murder rates would be up to five times higher than they are but for medical developments over the past 40 years.” The fact that murder rates have not gone up as much as they could have should be rightly attributed to medical doctors and the institutions that support their vital work in competently dealing with trauma situations that thus save lives, that if not for their vital assistance, would result in the person dying.
Indeed, the thing about statistics is that the story that they are telling can be deceptive, when we don’t take into account what needs to be taken into account, of which, non-fatal shootings should be seen for what they really are, a serious crime that could have resulted in the death of the other, if not oftentimes because of medical intervention. This signifies that those who are proud of murder rates having gone down in their city, need to recognize that attempted murder and crimes of aggravated assault are themselves a clear and present danger to the good citizens of that city, and therefore in the absence of these bad events, being reduced significantly, true progress in the safety of the community is actually an illusion.
In reality, America is a violent country, and to the degree that murder rates have been reduced, that is a good thing, but when the most proximate reason for that reduction is the advances in medical technology, logistics, and medical personnel -- then whatever means that have been taken by governance to reduce such, have not been nearly as effective as these governmental officials apparently believe. In a land in which gun ownership is so high and of which those guns are far too often in the hands of people who do not use those guns to protect themselves or others, but rather are the aggressors in the shooting of those guns so as to commit violence against another -- has clearly not been close to being resolved. That is why it is so important to look behind the statistics, and the narrative, to see the real truth of the situation which is that the amount of violence in America is high, systemic, and troubling.