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Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

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Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#61
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another possible explanation is that some people commit multiple murders and being caught after a successful murder prevents the subsequent ones

> I'm basing this on the assumption that the average number of homicide incidents per murderer is somewhere around one

Let's make up some numbers, say 98% commit a single murder and 2% commit 20 leaving an average of 1.38. If the new system stops every murderer after the first one, the number of murders have a 27.5% reduction. Actual reduction quoted in the article is 12.8%.

So it could very well be true that the average number of murders committed is close to 1 and at the same time the reduction is wholly accounted for by stopping multiple murders.

I still doubt that either cause speculated on in the article are the actual full reason, or even possibly the primary reasons, but it would at least be possible with the information provided.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#62
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another possible explanation is that some people commit multiple murders and being caught after a successful murder prevents the subsequent ones

> I'm basing this on the assumption that the average number of homicide incidents per murderer is somewhere around one

ithkuil noted that the data may not support that assumption. Merely repeating the assumption is not a very persuasive reply, nor is it a very thoughtful one.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every serious look into gun forensics I've read indicates that matching a casing or bullet to a specific gun is pseudo-science.

I just wrote about that. It absolutely is. The worst was when anti-gun groups were pushing “micro-stamping” of firing pins to imprint a number on the primer face. Complete and utter fantasy, easily defeat-able, unenforceable, nonsense. Didn’t stop them from pushing it for at least a decade. Even the bullet to barrel match of a gun fired in the lab is pretty much BS. You can tell major aspects like ”the gun this bulle…

Indeed. Not sure where the notion came from that devices mass produced with interchangeable parts would have some kind of mechanical fingerprint that could be forensically identified. Most modern handguns use the browning short recoil action. Of those, most use the Sig Sauer updated system. They are all going to do very similar things cases. That's by design. The most you may ever be able to prove is "yeah this was fired by a glock" Which is next to useless and even then I doubt it.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#64

> "We're using tools like crime-gun intelligence, the ability to trace the gun and the spent shell casing from a crime scene to identify who's that shooter, how many violent crimes have they been involved with," she said in the interview. I don't think that prevents enough crime to account for the drop, though I would believe it helps catch criminals after the fact. I'm basing this on the assumption that the average…

Almost all police activity is there to document crime not to prevent it. And yes. They’re full of crap here. To the best of my knowledge not once has a recovered shell been matched to the the case casing library system - it was so ineffective that they dropped it after at least a decade of forcing mfgs to supply two shell casings with every handgun made. Shell casings are basically only good for additional evidence,…

> Almost all police activity is there to document crime not to prevent it.

You say this like it's a bad thing (to the extent it's even true). One of the main purposes of the criminal justice system is to deter crime, and in order for the criminal justice system to work, someone has to be supplying the information.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly hard to explain this disconnect to people who haven't lived in high-poverty/high-crime/dense places. Chicago, even the south side, never felt dangerous to me while living there. But here in Texas, people seem to think it's some wild west of violence every day.

I'm deep in one of the most violent areas of South Side Chicago. People always telling me to be safe. Sure, there are gun battles every night, but it doesn't feel inherently unsafe in the neighborhood. The biggest risk is just living in a house near a gun battle where a stray bullet will get you. Otherwise all the shooting is gang-on-gang violence, sad as that is. Young kids just killing each other for points. As pra…

Years ago I lived on the edge of a violent area in a big city. People were sometimes shot and killed near my apartment, and I often heard gunfire. But I agree -- no one ever bothered me, and after some initial hesitation I felt fine. It was really gang members with guns shooting each other.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#66
post #56
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News at 11 . . . Americans believe the news.

And oddly, no matter the political bent of viewer or of caster, people seriously shouldn’t believe the press (corporate or otherwise). The corporate press is just a few politically and financially well connected megacorps who have both their own corporate agenda as well as their connections’ agendas. The amateur press is precisely that and therefore shouldn’t be blindly trusted either. Do you trust Comcast to speak h…

> people seriously shouldn’t believe the press

This is ridiculous. Most of the things the mainstream media report on are true. Do you believe there are wars right now in Ukraine and Israel? Do you believe that the UK exited the EU? Do you believe that SpaceX lost a rocket last week when it tipped over on a boat?

There is certainly a bias towards outrage and inciting strong feelings to get eyeballs and attention. Certain networks have leaned into a political bias as well. But the media is still, by far, the best and most trustworthy source for the basic facts of what is going on in the world.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#67
post #55

Ran across an interesting observation a little while ago that while homicides—deaths—have been dropping, that doesn't necessarily mean that 'the streets' have gotten safer: > That's how good trauma surgeons are now. They're looking for solutions [to gun deaths] outside the hospital. > Now, think about the implications of that in a place like Washington, DC. In the last 30 years, the number of homicides in Washington…

https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crim... Cities are safer. Violent crime is down and property crime continues to drop.

I also have a feel that how random crime is depends on type and varies from place to place. Some places it's mostly personal and others not as much. So personal risk doesn't necessarily track averages. Could be significantly lower or maybe higher.

I think in San Francisco violent crime tends to be personal and someone stealing your bike isn't. Where the east bay I feel is more dangerous for someone just going about their business.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#68
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding data points from decades ago that is higher then the current data point doesn't invalidate that the recent trend is upwards.

The COVID pandemic is pretty clearly a black swan sort of scenario, and the article indicates its impacts are fading.

Internationally, there is evidence that COVID decreased rather than increased crime rates. One example:

"We collected data on daily counts of crime in 27 cities across 23 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We conducted interrupted time series analyses to assess the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on different types of crime in each city. Our findings show that the stay-at-home policies were associated with a considerable drop in urban crime, but with substantial variation across cities and types of crime." -- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01139-z

What evidence is there that COVID was the cause of increased crime rates in the US?

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The COVID pandemic is pretty clearly a black swan sort of scenario, and the article indicates its impacts are fading.

Internationally, there is evidence that COVID decreased rather than increased crime rates. One example: "We collected data on daily counts of crime in 27 cities across 23 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We conducted interrupted time series analyses to assess the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on different types of crime in each city. Our findings show that the stay-at-home policies w…

> What evidence is there that COVID was the cause of increased crime rates in the US?

The timing of the spike?

Your link is specific to “stay at home policies”, correctly notes even those were short-lived, and that their relaxation in June/July/August saw the impact of those undone.

Re: Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wrote about that. It absolutely is. The worst was when anti-gun groups were pushing “micro-stamping” of firing pins to imprint a number on the primer face. Complete and utter fantasy, easily defeat-able, unenforceable, nonsense. Didn’t stop them from pushing it for at least a decade. Even the bullet to barrel match of a gun fired in the lab is pretty much BS. You can tell major aspects like ”the gun this bulle…

Indeed. Not sure where the notion came from that devices mass produced with interchangeable parts would have some kind of mechanical fingerprint that could be forensically identified. Most modern handguns use the browning short recoil action. Of those, most use the Sig Sauer updated system. They are all going to do very similar things cases. That's by design. The most you may ever be able to prove is "yeah this was f…

The factory Glock firing pin is a unique shape. You can tell on those.

What you can’t tell is if someone swapped the firing pin for something rounder.

Apparently the new small frame carry Glocks have round pins (42, 43, 48)

https://hipowersandhandguns.com/Corbon%209mm%20115_files/ima...

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