Copper Cops

Tonight, the citizens of Las Vegas, Nevada sleep soundly. Their senator, Harry Reid, is so concerned for their safety that he’s spent endless nights concocting a plan to keep them safe. He knows what ails the residents of Las Vegas, and he cuts through the fog to get things done. To deal with the city’s problems, Senator Reid has crafted an eleventh commandment. Some might say it’s an amendment to the eighth commandment, but no matter. Beyond a responsibility not to murder or covet thy neighbor’s wife, Reid has recently proclaimed that thou shall not steal copper wiring in Sin City. To enforce this new edict, Senator Reid has successfully obtained $400,000 for copper wire theft prevention in the recent omnibus spending bill. Feel that in the air? That’s the collective relief of formerly stressed Las Vegas denizens. The purity of their neighborhoods is being restored, and their children can play on the sidewalks once again. Why, this newfound principle almost gives them reason to forget for a moment that the murder rate in Las Vegas is five times the national average, or that you’re four times more likely to get raped in Sin City than in the rest of the country. It seems clear to me that Sen. Reid’s decree will allow Las Vegas residents to overlook the fact that they have a one in eight chance of coming back to their home or car to find it robbed, damaged or missing. My intuition points out that once their copper wiring is safe, people will disregard the trivial fact that robbery in Las Vegas occurs at a rate five and a half times higher than elsewhere in the US, and assault is nearly four times more frequent. Neighborhoodscout.com gives Las Vegas a crime index number of 0, with 100 being the safest. The website also informs me that Las Vegas is “safer than 0% of the cities in the US”. If a city is in the 0th percentile in terms of violent crimes and property theft, wouldn’t you think it might be helpful to put some money towards the hiring of police officers? Wouldn’t you think it would be important to focus on the violent murders, the houses being ransacked, and the people being assaulted? But many are convinced of Sen. Reid’s erudition, and I better get with it. So I say to you, oh citizens of Vegas, be assured of your personal well-being, the protection of your property and the safety of your loved ones. Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of sin, you need not fear evil, for Reid is with you.