Once upon a time, most Americans had never even heard of “flash mob robberies” or “organized looting”. Now they are considered to be a part of normal life in America. On Saturday, more than 20 teens stormed into a trendy clothing store in Chicago and stole more than $3,000 worth of jeans, but it barely made a blip on the national news because this kind of thing has become so common. After all, we just saw the exact same kind of thing happen in Jacksonville, Detroit, Baltimore and a whole bunch of other places. Flash mob crimes have become so common in Chicago that they take public opinion polls about them. But when I first started writing about this phenomenon a couple of years ago, hardly anyone knew what “mob robberies” were. In fact, I had to explain what these “flash mobs” were doing to a couple of radio hosts because they had never heard of such a thing. But now everybody knows about the flash mobs. Another disturbing trend that we are seeing all over America is “organized looting”. Groups of desperate criminals are going into empty or abandoned buildings and stripping out copper wire, copper pipes and anything else that they can sell for money. At one time these kinds of thefts made the news, but now they have also become so common that they don’t get much notice anymore. (Read More...)