o, 1990, p. 33). Deaths caused by firearms are especially high among America's black inner city neighborhoods. It is ironic that gunshot murders are more frequent among blacks than whites, because blacks are a relatively smaller group in terms of the total population of the country. Thus, it has been noted that "gun-wielding people are attacking twice as many blacks as whites, even though blacks represent only 12 per cent of the American population (MacKenzie, 1991, p. 24).
The most frequent occurrences of murder in America take place in the nation's big cities. As noted, the ethnic ghetto neighborhoods of these cities are the most susceptible to high murder rates. Recently, most of the major cities of the nation have experienced increases in the number of killings which take place each year. For example, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Oakland and Los Angeles all had sharp increases in their murder rate during the late 1980's and early 1990's (Hackett, Underwood and Rosenberg, 1990, p. 24). Traditionally, violent crimes like m
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