Subject: Re: Send in the National Guard!
So you’re suggesting that armed military troops trained for fighting, not law enforcement, be stationed there permanently to ensure there is no breach of public order by teenagers?

Nope. That's a misallocation of resources. What you should have is enough civilian law enforcement infrastructure to make sure that there this doesn't happen.

But the GOP is not wrong to note that the breach of public order by teenagers makes people feel unsafe. People don't always behave, and part of being in a city is having to deal with other people. But when things start to feel like they're out of control, like no one's really in charge, it doesn't matter that most of (or even all of) the disordered behavior is relatively minor. People will feel less safe, because they'll feel like no one is in control of the area that they're in. Absent confidence in public and collective provision of safety, they'll default to individual behaviors to ensure safety - hypervigilant monitoring of their surroundings, extra precautions around their person and belongings, reluctance to engage in certain activities they enjoy and have every right to engage in. And they'll be upset by having to do that.

The GOP gets that. There's always been a division between the GOP and the Democrats on law and order issues, and they represent different constituency, and there's very thorny questions around "Who Is The City For?" that get implicated in these issues. But in the past, Democrats have always been much better at recognizing that voters genuinely care about these things and trying to echo that importance, rather than trying to convince voters that they're wrong because look at the crime stats.