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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

#161

Post by ctdonath »

DougWebb wrote: post #29
Terretta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> selectively choose which crime stats to promote For example, FBI homicide stats last year show 350 killed by rifles of any kind, assault or otherwise, while 750 killed by hammers. I keep waiting for the groundswell of public support for hammer control.

It's tough to kill at a distance with a hammer, unlike a rifle. I suppose that's why people fear rifles more, but honestly I think the hammer killer is more frightening. If someone decides to randomly put a bullet through my head from half a mile away, I'll never even hear it coming. But if someone decides to crush my skull with a hammer, I'm going to be around long enough to know that I'm going to die in a really st…

Long-range killings (outside military combat) are extremely rare. Hammer killings aren't in comparison.

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

#162

Post by joshuahedlund »

grey-area wrote: post #147

Homicide rates in the US are still significantly higher than other developed nations, so there's a long way to go: US 4.8 per 100,000 in 2012 UK 1.2 France 1.1 Germany 0.8 Japan 0.4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... I wonder why this paper doesn't use the statistics from 2012, which show an uptick to 4.8?

It's unfair to compare the best state-sized countries with the entire United States, which has several states 7+ but also several 2 and under. It would be better to compare the US to the closer-sized Europe, which is 3.5. Still a legitimate difference, but not nearly as stark.

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

#163

Post by lifeisstillgood »

corresation wrote: post #98
jordan0day wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that 30,000+ figure? The FBI statistics link in this thread mentions around 8600 firearm-related murders for 2011 (but not suicide or accidents). That's the only hard data I've seen in this thread so far though. In these sorts of threads, anecdotes and hyperbole can quickly overrule data and thoughtfulness, so I'm just hoping that numbers like "30,000+" aren't being pulled out of thin air. I'…

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths... As others have mentioned, a hefty percentage of those deaths are suicides. Would those suicides have happened if the option of a firearm wasn't available? Perhaps.

I have to say, with no evidence to back it up, that if you want to die enough to put a barrel in your mouth, if that gun is taken away, you can find another way.

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

#164

Post by corresation »

runjake wrote: post #148
corresation wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't to me. You're factoring in all Canadians of all ages (newborn->elderly, men, women) in all areas. 1 in 20 of every single human being regardless of age/gender seems pretty common in context. If I were to perform the same sort of blanket percentage on Americans that actually watch baseball games regularly, I bet I'd reach a similar percentage. That doesn't mean that baseball fans are rare. A citation for yo…

5%, or 1/20, is the commonly reported figure - https://www.google.ca/search?q=percentage+of+canada+hunts

I live in the Toronto area, and around here the percentage is, unsurprisingly, incredibly low. Out of the thousands of people that I engage with, I know one other person who hunts.

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

#165

Post by ctdonath »

maxerickson wrote: post #122
jordan0day wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Oh, collecting has a lot to do with it even if they're current mass-produced products. It's easy to get into the mode of "I want one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...and one of those...". It's accentuated by political attempts to limit acquisition of guns, leading to "I'd better get everything I want NOW while I still can!"

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

#166

Post by rgraham »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150
rgraham wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then it isn't an AK-47 in the same way that an AR-15 isn't an M16. The point is, nobody is making or importing full auto AK-47s and selling them to gang members. A semiautomatic-only AK-47 is just the functional equivalent of a hunting rifle.

The M16 has been semi-auto (single fire and three round bursts) since the Vietnam war with the rare exception of special forces weapons[1]. Fully automatic mainline rifles are inaccurate, wasteful, expensive, and less effective.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle#M16A2

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

#167

Post by bluedino »

evan_ wrote: post #153
bluedino wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popular with gangs for the same reason. They're also pretty intimidating. Citation? Go to a search engine and type something like "AK47 chicago gang" or search the news websites for any large city with a high murder rate for 'ak47' > 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. Don't do this. You know I meant 'AK pa…

You'll get a lot of hits on that because the media calls every long gun an AK47. No criminal in his right mind would use one, it's expensive and objectively terrible.

You think full-auto weapons aren't used on the streets of America?

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

#168

Post by jeffdavis »

tokenadult wrote: post #112

The article "In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732471250457813... from December 8, 2012 provides some perspective on falling absolute numbers (and thus a falling rate) of gunshot deaths. "Crime experts who attribute the drop in killings to better policing or an aging population fail to square the image of a more tranquil nation with this stat…

There's a graph of "non-fatal violent firearm crime" right in the article. It looks flat to me between 2001 and 2011.

Are both true somehow? Those facts seem to be in conflict.

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

#169

Post by DigitalTurk »

voidlogic wrote: post #123
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…

>>How is gun control going to help our suicide rate What if I think people have a right to kill themselves?

It doesn't mean you have to make it easy to do impulsively.

You can also legalize euthanasia in case of severe, chronic depression, like in some European countries.

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

#170

Post by DigitalTurk »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #163
corresation wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths... As others have mentioned, a hefty percentage of those deaths are suicides. Would those suicides have happened if the option of a firearm wasn't available? Perhaps.

I have to say, with no evidence to back it up, that if you want to die enough to put a barrel in your mouth, if that gun is taken away, you can find another way.

can != will
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