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Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

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Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#121

Post by 3pt14159 »

mitchty wrote: post #72
jstalin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm a gun supporter, I think the decline in overall crime has more to do with the reduction in environmental lead: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...

Actually I forget where I read it but there is a hypothesis going around that the overall crime reduction has to do more with liberalization of things like birth control and access to abortion options. At work at the moment and don't have time to pull up the details until tonight, but the examples given say of romania where none of the above is legally available still has a high crime rate. The general gist of things…

That has mostly been shown to only have mild statistical relevancy, not nearly enough to be the majority of the explanation.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#122

Post by maxerickson »

jordan0day wrote: post #95
dmix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To keep the numbers relative, US Population: 1993: 257,746,103 2012: 315,809,000 = 58,062,897 more people since 1993. So 2.8x as many guns than population increase.

Maybe it's an economic indicator? Collecting guns is a popular hobby, so perhaps a rise in gun sales correlates to a rise in the economic standing of gun collectors?

100 million modern, collectible guns seems unlikely.

(I agree that there are lots of people that like to collect guns, I just don't think they could possibly be driving (that much) manufacturing, making a lot of something makes it less collectible.)

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#123

Post by voidlogic »

learc83 wrote: post #54
corresation wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

750 were killed by hammers or clubs which includes any blunt force attack (vase, bat, golf club, etc. I am assuming that you're accurately quoting a number, though last I saw that number was more in the 450 range). Secondly every home has numerous objects that qualify as "clubs", many of them serving valid, functional roles (for instance to hammer, or to hit balls, etc). In many households a firearm has one single pu…

>The second is that few argue for "rifle control", but instead want "gun control". Except that's not what was actually happening. Most of what was hotly debated over the last few months has been over an "Assault Weapons Ban", that is a ban on certain semi-automatic rifles, very rarely involved in crime. It was only after that was defeated that people started talking about universal background checks. >Those guns that…

>>How is gun control going to help our suicide rate

What if I think people have a right to kill themselves?

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#124

Post by greedo »

ebbv wrote: post #45

Of course it is. All violent crime is down. That has nothing to do with the fact that kids are still accidentally getting shot. I propose a new law; if a child (under 18) is found in possession of a gun the gun owner is fined $50,000. If the gun's ownership cannot be established, the parents or legal guardians are fined $50,000 instead. People might be a little more serious about locking up their guns and not letting…

And kids are getting killed accidentally via a number of other methods that don't garner the anti-gun media's attention:

Selected Causes of Death, Ages 0-19, per 100,000 Population (2007) Cause Number of Deaths Mortality Rate Unintentional Injury 11,560 14.0 Motor Vehicle 6,683 8.1 Drowning 1,056 1.3 Fire/Burn 544 0.7 Poisoning 972 1.2 Suffocation/Strangulation 1,263 1.5 Firearm 138 0.2 Homicide 3,345 4.1 Firearm 2,186 2.7 Suicide 1,665 2.0 Firearm 683 0.8 Suffocation/Strangulation 739 0.9 Poisoning 133 0.2

Now this is 6 year old data. But accidental death by firearm isn't the danger that it would appear, compared to other threats.

http://www.childdeathreview.org/nationalchildmortalitydata.h...

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#125

Post by jstalin »

codeulike wrote: post #89
jstalin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the suicide rate has been on the decline since the 1950s as well: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html

But what about "Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S. (nytimes.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5647015

That article seems to touch only on one subgroup of people and not the overall suicide rate.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#126

Post by rgraham »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #114
bluedino wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rifles (especially AK47s) are very popular with gangs for drive by shootings.

The AK-47 is a select fire fully automatic rifle. It has been illegal to import or manufacture fully automatic rifles for civilian use for decades.

AKs in the US have been semi-automatic for a long time. It takes an experienced gunsmith to restore fully automatic firing to an imported AK. They have been sold this way in the US for decades and are a cheaper alternative to the AR-15.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#127

Post by learc83 »

nemof wrote: post #97
learc83 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The second is that few argue for "rifle control", but instead want "gun control". Except that's not what was actually happening. Most of what was hotly debated over the last few months has been over an "Assault Weapons Ban", that is a ban on certain semi-automatic rifles, very rarely involved in crime. It was only after that was defeated that people started talking about universal background checks. >Those guns that…

Yes there is http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/suicides-vs-handgun-... Introduce background checks and you will reduce the number of suicides, more likely than not.

The conclusions motherjones got from that study were absolutely ridiculous.

The big graph they display is meaningless.

Here is a quote from the article.

"...gun suicides, where the majority of victims don't have a documented serious mental illness."

In many states background checks don't require a waiting period. So a background check wouldn't have stopped them from buying a gun.

Their entire premise is based on suicide being quick and impulsive. Yet their only data is on background checks for private sales.

Are you telling me that someone who wants quick access to a gun is going to wait until Saturday rolls around, drive to a gunshow and buy a gun?

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#128

Post by corresation »

runjake wrote: post #51
corresation wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

750 were killed by hammers or clubs which includes any blunt force attack (vase, bat, golf club, etc. I am assuming that you're accurately quoting a number, though last I saw that number was more in the 450 range). Secondly every home has numerous objects that qualify as "clubs", many of them serving valid, functional roles (for instance to hammer, or to hit balls, etc). In many households a firearm has one single pu…

> In many households a firearm has one single purpose, which is to kill or maim (given that hunting is rare). Kill or maim criminal intruders (given that murderers are rare). I'm not sure where in Canada you are, but hunting is far from rare in Canada and most areas of the US.

but hunting is far from rare in Canada

5% of Canadians hunt. That qualifies as pretty rare to me. I don't know what the percentage is in the US, but just gut feeling is that there's a wide gap between gun ownership and hunting.

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#129

Post by CodeCube »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #94
platz wrote: post #55

Just a sanity check: "Researchers have studied the decline in firearm crime and violent crime for many years, and though there are theories to explain the decline, there is no consensus among those who study the issue as to why it happened."

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because it's harder to get away with a gun crime now than it used to be. TV shows like CSI probably have more to do with the decline in gun violence than any other environmental factors.

Some have suggested that the decline in crime in the 90's was due to abortion - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_ef...

Re: Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware

#130

Post by schoper »

Whatever drives violent crime in the U.S. does not seem to be the presence or absence of guns.

The white murder rate in America is about the same as it is in Europe/Canada, etc. The black murder rate is about the same as it is in parts of Africa. (Something like 10x the white rate.)

First look here to get a rough idea of the murder rate in different parts of the globe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Take a look here for the murder rate in different American states:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-...

Notice how this is a very similar list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-...

With some corrections for urbanization, the correlation is even more extreme.

Also see the discussion and figures here: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

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