"Around the year 2004, 2005, we're going to have a great crime wave unprecedented in Virginia's history." -- Richard P. Kern, "a top state criminologist", Nov. 18, 1993.

"'There is a tremendous crime wave coming in the next 10 years,' fueled not by old, hardened criminals, but by a group he calls 'the young and the ruthless.'" -- USA Today, quoting criminologist James Alan Fox in 1995.

"The predictions didn't come out right, but maybe that's because the predictions were there. If myself and others hadn't gotten people's attention, maybe we would have just sat around waiting for the worst to occur rather than trying to avert it early on." -- James Alan Fox in 2005.

"You issue a hurricane warning in advance with the hope that the public will take the necessary precautions and board up their properties and evacuate so as to minimize the property damage and causalities. Our lawmakers heeded the warnings and took precautions to prevent crime from spiking." -- Richard P. Kern in 2005.

Talk about having it both ways. You claim the sky is falling, and then when it doesn't happen you take credit for sounding the alarm and preventing it from happening. Global Warming advocates will no doubt make the same claims when the world doesn't end on schedule.

Today most of the Criminologists are now saying that longer criminal sentences, abolition of parole, more better prisons and zero-tolerance in schools has led to the overall decline in Virginia's crime rate. While those may be valid points (save for the zero-tolerance), not one of them credits the systematic deregulation of guns and the issuance of tens of thousands of concealed carry permits, all of which started in the mid-1990s.