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A way to measure gun violence in America

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#11

Post by robsears »

> The more telling number about gun violence might be “shots fired.” And now, thanks to broader adoption of new technologies, it is getting easier to show just how common gun violence is in America.

I happened to be working with a dispatcher in a 9-11 call center on the night the bin Laden raid was announced. Over the course of a couple hours, we fielded hundreds of "shots fired" calls, which mostly turned out to be people lighting off fireworks (sure, there were probably a few drunks firing into the air, but that's more reckless than violent).

If "gun violence" had been measured by these reports, the raw stats would suggest that the entire city had spontaneously erupted into a warzone, and then spontaneously returned to normal, all for no reason and without a single injury or death.

My point is that the author is advocating collecting statistics in a way that equates gang shootouts and backfiring cars as equal incidents of gun violence. The system is guaranteed to generate lots false positives, which will be used to bolster support for more surveillance and gun control. Not only is it _not_ a better way to measure gun violence, it's a proposition so fundamentally flawed that it borders on insanity.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#12

Post by kec »

capote wrote: post #6
presidentender wrote: post #3

Why is 'gun violence' so dire that it deserves its own category, relative to other forms of harm?

Because it's its own category of violence. Like any other category, it's not a matter of 'deserving', but rather just a statistic category so we can discuss and analyze it. What a strange question. Why do we discuss it a lot? Because it's one of the most obvious issues in the US, compared to other advanced countries. We have shootings every day in many major urban centers, we have school shootings periodically, which…

The question is more why do we treat assault and homicide where a firearm is involved differently from other instances of assault and homicide? Dead is dead, no matter the manner in which it happened.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#13

Post by rbcgerard »

presidentender wrote: post #3

Why is 'gun violence' so dire that it deserves its own category, relative to other forms of harm?

un-nuanced observers talk about it because it's likely largest subset of murders in the U.S. - angenda driven (anti-gun) observers like to talk about it because they can frame a problem in such a way that leads people to the outcome they want - I.e. The obvious solution to ending gun violence is limiting access to guns, and they don't have to address the much more complex problem of violence (for example: if a spouse kills her partner with a gun, and we want to reduce gun violence, we limit access to the gun, but will that spouse just substitute a knife for the gun?)

Put another way - if you could snap your fingers and make every gun in the u.s. Disappear, you would solve the gun violence problem, and undoubtedly reduce the incedence of violent crime, but not completely, and then the question becomes by how much? Which is not easy to answer - especially if we were to translate that to a real world hypothetical

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#14

Post by oldmanjay »

kec wrote: post #12
capote wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's its own category of violence. Like any other category, it's not a matter of 'deserving', but rather just a statistic category so we can discuss and analyze it. What a strange question. Why do we discuss it a lot? Because it's one of the most obvious issues in the US, compared to other advanced countries. We have shootings every day in many major urban centers, we have school shootings periodically, which…

The question is more why do we treat assault and homicide where a firearm is involved differently from other instances of assault and homicide? Dead is dead, no matter the manner in which it happened.

If that's a serious question you'll be pleased to know it has a very simple answer - to those with a political agenda, no technique is below exploitation to gain command of the emotions of the people.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#15

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

What's the cheapest device one could build that isn't a firearm, but could reproduce the sound of a gunshot with enough fidelity to fool this thing? Bonus if it can do a nice AK-47 machine gun sound or something like that.

Assume that the device requires electricity. It probably should be wifi-connected, so that if you can get it close enough to a Starbucks or something, you can control it remotely. Should ideally be small and unobtrusive so that it's not easily spotted. Shouldn't need any refillable fuels.

Would be fun to put the plans up on the net so that many people would build and field these.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#17

Post by hga »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #15

What's the cheapest device one could build that isn't a firearm, but could reproduce the sound of a gunshot with enough fidelity to fool this thing? Bonus if it can do a nice AK-47 machine gun sound or something like that. Assume that the device requires electricity. It probably should be wifi-connected, so that if you can get it close enough to a Starbucks or something, you can control it remotely. Should ideally be…

Not sure how much they sound like guns, but there's a whole field of scaring off birds from farms, see e.g. http://www.birdcontrolpro.com/propane_cannons.htm

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#18

Post by astrodust »

capote wrote: post #9
JoBrad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be difficult to detect false positives based on the signature of a gun shot vs other loud noises.

I was gonna say, having heard a gunshot as well as the other stated things that could sound like gunshots, I think gunshots are categorically louder and more identifiable. That said, I'm not a gun expert so I could be wrong for different types of guns, etc.

I bet if you were given six months and high quality recordings of different types of gunfire you could figure out how to do it algorithmically.

It's all about having a large enough corpus of input, both of the type you're looking for and the type you're looking to exclude. This is an undergraduate level problem to solve.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#19

Post by esaym »

robsears wrote: post #11

> The more telling number about gun violence might be “shots fired.” And now, thanks to broader adoption of new technologies, it is getting easier to show just how common gun violence is in America. I happened to be working with a dispatcher in a 9-11 call center on the night the bin Laden raid was announced. Over the course of a couple hours, we fielded hundreds of "shots fired" calls, which mostly turned out to be…

Totally. I live within the city limits, but a somewhat rural area. On Sept 1st every year (when dove season starts), I hear multiple shot gun shots per second (yes per second) from about 5am - 9am for several days.

Re: A way to measure gun violence in America

#20

Post by saulrh »

capote wrote: post #9
JoBrad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be difficult to detect false positives based on the signature of a gun shot vs other loud noises.

I was gonna say, having heard a gunshot as well as the other stated things that could sound like gunshots, I think gunshots are categorically louder and more identifiable. That said, I'm not a gun expert so I could be wrong for different types of guns, etc.

Lots of differences that can be pulled out algorithmically. Gunshots are much sharper, as they're mechanical/aerodynamic rather than chemical, and are linear rather than point sources. Receivers placed across the city will record differently dopplered shockwaves based on how close they are to being in line with the bullet's trajectory. If you really wanted to, I bet that you could go around the city after installation and set off firecrackers in a grid to map out the city's acoustics, then reconstruct bullet trajectory down to thirty or forty meters. Which'd be pretty cool.

Of course, all that goes away in the case of subsonic rounds. Then your only real difference is that a gun propellant is going to have a much faster velocity than the gunpowder in fireworks and the explosion is going to be rather better contained. You'll probably still be able to differentiate, but I'm not sure how effectively, especially over long distances.

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