Steve Marshall: Gun control won't solve Birmingham's crime problem

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is arguing against the narrative pushed by some Democrats that the state needs stricter gun control to combat a rise in crime. The issue resurfaced this year after Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin called for more gun control in response to a mass shooting in his city that killed 4 people.

“We don’t have any interest in this whole debate about Second Amendment rights,” Woodfin said at the time. “We don’t have any interest in people wanting to protect their homes, militia, whatever else you want to say. There’s a certain element in this city, there’s a certain element in this community, who are too comfortable riding around with semi-automatic weapons, automatic weapons, conversions, switches and everything else whose only intent, hellbent intent, is to harm people, shoot people, kill people.”

Marshall told WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” that the statistics just don’t back up the arguments in favor of more gun laws.

“I don’t buy that at all,” Marshall said. “If in fact that was the driver, then why don’t we see more evidence of the consistent rise in violent crime across our state? We don’t.

Marshall pointed to other cities in the state that have the same laws surrounding guns but haven’t seen a rise in crime.

“Look, Huntsville is a great example of that, right? I mean, you can see a significant contrast between violent crime in the Tennessee Valley versus what we’ve seen in Montgomery and Birmingham,” he explained. “And so if in fact if the gun issue was what was the driver of that criminal problem, then the data ought to reflect that in other places, and it simply doesn’t.”

Marshall argued that there are other ways they have dealt with crime that have shown to work.

“We’ve seen tremendous success in Montgomery, and hopefully, people have been able to follow the collaborative efforts of ALEA, the local sheriff here in Montgomery, our office, as well as the Montgomery Police Department, where there’s been exponential decrease in violent crime rates, robbery rates, sexual assaults as a result of surging law enforcement in the communities,” he said. “You know people want to talk about in place blame. The reality is, we know the effective things at work, and that is proactive, professional and engaged law enforcement working in communities.”

“And it’s interesting to me that many of those who were harping on the narrative of defunding the police, and those that were really demonizing the work of law enforcement generally, have now swung full circle and have said we need the presence of law enforcement or communities,” he added. “We need to put bad guys in jail, and we then can allow for safe practices to be taking place in communities throughout Alabama. We’ve shown that works here in Montgomery.

Marshall said he hopes Birmingham will implement a similar strategy as Montgomery to help the city fight crime.

“We have shared that success with officials in Birmingham, and hope that they will take opportunities to be proactive in putting law enforcement in places where they’re needed, to be able to recruit effectively, to enhance the numbers on their police force, because that’s what works,” he argued. “When you have the presence of law enforcement doing their jobs, we see communities become safer, and that’s an opportunity to be able to do that throughout the state.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee