Crime is one of those things that we’ll likely always have to deal with. While movies, books, and television may try to present us with a Utopian version of the world without actual crime, that’s fiction and we have to deal with reality. It’s here and will always be here to some degree.

However, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate it. The problem is, some people don’t like those steps because it hurts their feelings.

After the death of George Floyd, one of those things was the mere existence of police. Many wanted the police to be defunded. When crime began to soar, those same people swore up and down that the problem there was easy access to firearms.

Yet events at the University of Minnesota prove that to be wrong.

The Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis has seen a thirty-eight percent decrease in property and violent crime after an increase in police presence. The neighborhood is a commercial district popular with students and most of the residents of the area attend the nearby University of Minnesota.

“In May 2021, the number of crimes reached a peak of 129 total property and violent crimes in Marcy-Holmes, with the majority as property crimes,” campus paper The Minnesota Daily reported. “Since then, the total of property and violent crimes in the neighborhood have decreased by 49 in August.”

“After extra security measures were taken, the number of crimes decreased to 80 total violent and property crimes in August,” the paper reported. “In comparison to past years, property and violent crimes increased from May to August in 2019 and 2020.”

The increased presence was spurred by the shooting of three students in June.

As a result, crime has dropped. Do you know what hasn’t dropped, though? Legal gun ownership.

While some have continued to claim that violent crime is driven by legal access to firearms, the truth is that we’re looking at a 38 percent drop in crime with no new gun control laws going into effect.

This is contrasted with the continuing to rise violent crime rate throughout the rest of Minneapolis as police basically sit everything out. This is in one city, and while there is always going to be some variation within a city, this is a little extreme.

What anyone with a brain can see is that a police presence is actually good for the community. After all, criminals see a lot of police and decide there are better places for them to be. Who knew?

I mean, besides anyone with more than two functional brain cells, that is.

But the point remains that the gun laws have remained consistent, which proves that gun control isn’t necessary to reduce the violence surge we’ve seen all over the country. What’s needed is for elected leaders to actually lead instead of following a loud, ridiculous mob in denigrating law enforcement as a whole because of the actions of a few.

More police presence will mean less criminal activity, and we’ve got the data to back that up now.