Living in Detroit

How's that hope and change working out for you. From The Daily:

911 IS A JOKE
The people of Detroit are taking no prisoners.

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they�re offering no apologies.

�We got to have a little Old West up here in Detroit. That�s what it�s gonna take,� Detroit resident Julia Brown told The Daily.

The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn�t show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she�s prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity.

�I don�t intend to be one of their victims,� said Brown, who has lived in Detroit since the late 1950s. �I�m planning on taking one out.�

A bit more:

In this city of about 700,000 people, the number of cops has steadily fallen, from about 5,000 a decade ago to fewer than 3,000 today. Detroit homicides � the second-highest per capita in the country last year, according to the FBI � rose by 10 percent in 2011 to 344 people.

And the private sector is always ready to step in:

The city�s wealthier enclaves have hired private security firms. Intimidating men in armored trucks patrol streets lined with gracious old homes in a scene more likely seen in Mexico City than the United States.

That kind of paid protection can run residents anywhere from $10 to $200 per month, and companies say business is good.

�We�re booming,� said Dale Brown, the owner of Threat Management Group, which along with Recon Security patrols neighborhoods like Palmer Woods in black Hummers.

�We�re paramilitary, but we�re positive. I�m not a vigilante. I�m an agent of change.�

Got to love capitalism. Sadly, this is the fate of larger cities if we follow Obama's plans. To quote Andrew Wilkow: Socialism -- ideas so good they have to be mandatory.