An impressive array of researchers professed to grapple with the puzzling decline of violent crime rates. But despite all their speculation, they admitted they really hadn't a clue. So their incentive to fight against each other has gone down. Likewise absent from establishment theorizing has been self-defense and deterrence. Such laws were rare in 1980, but today, it is the states without such laws that are the exception.
Nobody really understands all of the causes for rising and falling crime rates.
Whether Americans have a greater ability than the American establishment to handle the truth about crime remains to be seen.