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So what's the deal with the National Guard deployments? I've seen a lot of reporting around whether the cities want the Guard, whether Trump will deploy the Guard, whether the courts will force Trump to pull the Guard out, etc.
But I haven't seen much reporting on the impact that Guard is having where it is deployed. Is crime down, even anecdotally? Are the streets safer? Have National Guardsman shot or beat up or detained anyone?
Was it a good idea? What are the early results?
I heard it worked in DC, and as I understand it also quelled LA riots pretty quickly (though we always have the possibility they'd have ended the same without the Guard deployment). In general, such things serve multiple functions: showing the ne'er-do-wells that the Law is serious now and the free ride is at least temporarily over, which makes the opportunists among them to either lay low or move on to other places/things, showing the local police that if they aren't doing their jobs, their jobs will be done for them, which makes the city admin more open to the idea to actually instruct the police to do their job, showing the random normies things are happening in the most perceivable and obvious way - you literally see those guys on the street. And the thugs see them too, so they aren't likely to rob a grocery store right in front of them. Of course, the idea is that once the quiet is established, the local police will take over in maintaining this quiet - which if the local police is not willing to (or the local government does not intend to let them) makes it only a temporary measure. But the local politicians do not want to establish a pattern "with Trump - quiet, without Trump - mayhem" in the minds of their electorate, so they would be at least somewhat incentivized for maintain the quiet, once established, for a while.
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I've heard anecdotally from the national media that the DC NG has made a huge difference.
Less reporting of it being helpful in other areas, the proposed explanation for that is that DC was somewhat open to the idea and coordinated areas for them to be present.
Even some dems have supported it, although usually quietly.
The main difference is that DC is a federal district, so it has no independent sovereignty and the federal government can do whatever it wants. Other cities have overlapping state jurisdiction which the Constitution gives some weight to, so the permitted activities of federal forces is much more circumscribed. If the locals are cooperative of course there is a lot more leeway, but if they are not, then there would have to be some federal nexus in their activities.
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I travel to D.C. for work pretty often and always meet up with friends who live in the city. During a recent trip, my friends and I agreed the city has changed for the better since the National Guard deployment.
The usual "crowd" that spills in from Maryland at night dropped significantly, making walking around past 10 p.m. without the fear of getting mugged or murdered possible for the first time, according to my friends, in "years." There's still some gun violence, but it's mostly contained to southeast D.C., across the river, which is a hotbed for criminal activity anyway. If there's a place the National Guard should focus its attention, it's there.
There are fewer homeless people and drug addicts harassing people on the street, thanks to a faster turnaround time by the cops to remove them when businesses and residents file reports. Before, homeless people would make forts out of cardboard boxes and squat, sometimes for months, in front of buildings, with the city shrugging its shoulders; not the case anymore.
With ICE on the prowl, there are also fewer noisy scooters driven by illegals working as food delivery people. There was a point, my friends said, when traffic was "filled" with scooters that swerved through cars, drove on the wrong side of the road, encroached into bike lanes, and sped through sidewalks. Additionally, they'd hear the whistling sound of scooters being locked for deliveries at all hours of the day. Now, they're all mostly gone.
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