Surprise! Single Moms Aren't to Blame for Violent Crime

By Amanda Marcotte   |   Posted Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012, at 1:42 PM ET

Back during the presidential debates, Mitt Romney responded to a question about gun violence by invoking the tired old conservative claim that violence is the result of dumb women who forget to get married before they had kids:

But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the—the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that's not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that's a great idea.

It sounded like a non sequitur—as far as I know, no one has shot up a crowd because society forgot to tell them to find a random person to marry prior to childbirth—but Romney was drawing on a long history of claims that single motherhood is the root cause of violence. These claims are based in no small part on the trend lines showing single motherhood and violent crime rising at the same rate.