In history’s first recorded homicide, Cain slew his younger brother, Abel. The case was somewhat unusual in that it wasn’t motivated by sex or money and didn’t involve a gun.

The Bible tells us that the brothers had both made offerings to God. Cain grew jealous when The Lord expressed preference for Abel’s gift over his own and subsequently whacked the favored sibling. As the murderer and his victim were the first offspring of Adam and Eve, that means it took a population of exactly four human beings to produce a stone-cold killer.

Later, when asked about Abel’s fate, the perp coins the world’s first alibi by posing the now-famous evasion, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” God sees through this ruse and banishes the culprit to wander east of Eden, in the land of Nod.

Cain pleads that he fears harm from the inhabitants of Nod — although it is unclear just whom they may be, given the census count of the time. Inconsistencies notwithstanding, God allays Cain’s fears by decreeing that anyone who harms him will receive their harm back sevenfold. He then marks Cain to that effect as a warning to would-be assailants. Perfect: one murder and we’ve already got a coddled criminal and the blueprint for the Witness Protection Program.

Much has changed since Cain wandered off, but his deadly trade still flourishes. Money and sex have replaced envy over divine affection as the most common motives for bloodlust and the invention of firearms has revolutionized the industry.

Casual observers are prone to conclude that drugs cause most homicides. They’re often involved, but drug wars are waged over money, not addiction. Narcotics dealers can’t sue in court to enforce contracts or establish territorial distribution rights. The carnage they engender is thus best understood as the consequence of ad-hoc financial dispute resolutions.

St. Louis Police homicide statistics indicate that as of May 16, there have been 58 people murdered within city limits so far this year. That’s an average of 1 killing every 2.4 days — about a 50 percent increase over a year ago.

Eighty-six percent of the victims were African-American, as are 100 percent of the suspects who have been arrested or who have been identified and are currently being sought. Police reports don’t indicate income or educational levels, but my time as a city cop tells me that a similar percentage of suspects were poor and under-educated. Firearms were the weapon of choice in 85 percent of the cases.

During the afternoon of May 12, 5 people were slaughtered in three unrelated shootings in northeast St. Louis. The savage concentration of these incidents moved coverage of them from the “In Other News” category to the front page. Millions of dollars and countless hours of effort spent to rehabilitate the city’s image were counteracted by one bloody Monday.

While the proximity of these crimes is an aberration, their underlying causation is not. One problem, of course, is the availability of firearms. It probably hasn’t helped that Missouri weapon laws have recently been relaxed to make it easier to buy a gun. Those changes reflect a paradox: as gun crime increases, so does the demand from law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms to protect themselves, which in turn puts more guns in circulation to commit crimes with. But, as Bart Simpson points out, it’s not the guns but the people who wield them that cause all the trouble.

In his thought-provoking text, Freakonomics, economist Steve Levitt demonstrates statistically that the nationwide decline in violent crime that began in 1990 was the direct result of the legalization of abortion 17 years earlier. The morality of abortion aside, fewer unwanted children = fewer street criminals. Although the city’s murder rate is up markedly from last year, it’s far short of what it was 20 years ago.

The near total collapse of family structure in some inner-city neighborhoods, however, has made far too many children born in them functionally unwanted. As those who have read The Lord of the Flies will understand, when children are deprived of the civilizing influence of responsible adults, they go bad fast. Worse, those who survive neglected childhoods tend to become neglectful parents, thereby perpetuating the destructive cycle by raising little Cains of their own.

There is no facile antidote to the lethal mix of feral upbringing and rapid-fire weaponry. Public policy, however well-intentioned, can never compensate for the lack of parental concern. And in a nation where guns out-number adults, there’s little hope of disarmament.  The descendants of Cain continue to thrive.

Average user rating

Display 1 of 1 comments