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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

#221

Post by ellyagg »

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…

As usual, you post an authoritative sounding reference that confirms a popular slant--in this case "gun violence is as bad as ever or even getting worse!"--and it gets voted to the top of the comments where it stays visible just long enough to protect the confirmation biases of those who agree with it, then falls off the front page before it can be refuted.

Your link is behind a pay wall for me and I don't have time to completely analyze how they're justifying their spin, but according to the Bureau of Justice, non-fatal firearm crimes have indeed been falling for the last 20 years, so, no, it's not just a product of improving treatment of gunshot wounds:

    Nonfatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through
    2004 before fluctuating in the mid- to late 2000s.
[http://bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fv9311pr.cfm]

As this is a well-known trend, I'm pretty sure anyone who wants to can find lots and lots of citations.

Moreover, this should be obvious to anyone who has participated in public society for the last 20 years. Decreasing crime statistics, including gun crime, aren't fool's gold. Crime is down. Society is getting gentler.

Twenty years ago I was 15. Gang violence dominated the news. Hard gangsta rap infused pop culture and music and it carried with it a true dangerous edge. Now culture is changing. Electronic music is popular. NBA basketball players dress up to look like Carleton Banks for press conferences. Internet culture, reddit culture is taking over. Kids spend all their time watching silly YouTube videos and playing iPhone games. There is far less free time for roving bands of aimless punks to get up to mischief. My teen-age son and his friends are incredibly nerdy and gentle and I've noticed this throughout the generation.

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

#222

Post by DigitalTurk »

DigitalTurk wrote: post #170
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wow. Am I get downvoted for pointing out a fallacy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

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

#223

Post by DigitalTurk »

ctdonath wrote: post #194
DigitalTurk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue at stake here is the counterfactual ‘If guns were (not) available, would the suicide rate be different’. How does your (oddly specific) statistic address this question?

The suicidal find a way. Where guns are not available, in at least one major comparable example, the suicide rate is different by being higher (by a lot). Sure, guns make it easy...but there are many other easy ways.

I don't think Japan and the USA are very comparable. In fact, I think insofar modern countries are concerned you'd be hard pressed to find two countries that are more different than Japan and the USA!

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

#224

Post by tomkarlo »

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.

The incidence of suicide (and related-party homicide) in households with guns is significantly higher. Unless we believe that there's a correlation between gun ownership and suicidal tendencies, the answer seems to be, mostly no.

Having a highly-effective killing device in the home turns attempts into suicides - and a gun is an order of magnitude more effective than other common methods.

http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2007-releases/...

Americans would go bonkers if someone started selling a do-it-yourself euthanasia machine. But we're ok with lots of handgun sales, despite that being one of their most common uses - more common than self-defense.

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

#225

Post by quantumstate »

schoper wrote: post #130

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_b…

Your Wikipedia link shows that the US murder rate is 4.8, the rates for Western, Southern and Northern Europe are 1.0, 1.4 and 1.5 respectively. Eastern Europe has a higher rate of 6.4. If you are looking at economic similarity Western, Northern and some of Southern Europe are comparable to the US. So the murder rates are very different.

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

#226

Post by greedo »

ebbv wrote: post #190
greedo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 2,1…

Yeah and all those other problems probably have solutions that could reduce the numbers too. Such as having much more stringent driving tests in the US. Firearms are still responsible for 3,007 out of the 16570 non-natural deaths listed. Or 18%. That's not insignificant. The solution is not to throw up your hands in the air and say "Oh well there's a bunch of reasons why kids die. Let's not bother doing anything."

I'm not throwing up my hands. I'm pointing to facts. And you're conflating suicides with accidental deaths and homicides. Curiously, the link I posted only breaks out homicides via firearms. According to the CDC, firearms constitute around 84% of the weapons used in homicides for ages 5-19 in 2005. The previous study has it at 65%, so it dropped 19% in two years.

If child/young adult safety is truly the goal, then there are far bigger fish to fry than controlling firearms.

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

#227

Post by MrMember »

mindcrime wrote: post #204
nsmartt wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do keep in mind that the parent was specifically referring to assault weapons, which are presumably much more rare than other firearms, and also very rarely used in crime. I have no statistics, and I have no clue how many baseball bat deaths occur annually. I just thought maybe this would be a useful reminder.

I haven't looked up the stats lately, but IIRC, the number of times a legally owned actual assault weapon was used in a crime in the US was something like 3 or 4... ever .

It's hard to find definitive statistics on that. If you go looking around you'll see a few cases that pop up. In the early 2000s a police officer (and member of the SWAT team) used his issued MP5 to murder a few people, and sometime in the 70s a police officer found his wife in bed with another man and killed one (or both? I can't remember) of them.

The point is, like you said, it's exceedingly rare.

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

#228

Post by MrMember »

mindcrime wrote: post #213
fywacro wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point seems reasonable & logical. But in my experience, it's also incorrect: Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. I believe it's because scarcity is not a significant driver of value, in most gun owners' minds. Gun collectors derive a large portion of their guns' value from using (firing) them in a sports setting. Contrast with art or stamps, which don't really…

Plenty of gun collecting is predominantly around modern, mass-produced, non-scarce guns. Absolutely. Plenty of gun-owners are just flat-out "gearheads" in the same sense as guitar players (who often own dozens of guitars and amps) or whatever. If I had money to burn, I personally would own a few dozen guns, and most of my collection would fall into the "modern, mass produced, non-scarce" category. The exceptions woul…

My "to buy" list looks very similar. Mostly modern firearms that serve a functional purpose with a few 'fun' guns (like an M1 Garand and Five-seveN) thrown in for either their historical value or 'cool factor.'

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

#230

Post by quantumstate »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #162
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.

Why are you comparing based on size? Surely it is sensible to try and compare economically similar. Western and Northern Europe is probably the best comparison, with a combined population of something like 280 Million, not too far from the US. The murder rates are 1.0 and 1.5 respectively, far lower than the US. The whole of Europe includes Eastern Europe which is much less similar to the US and has a higher murder rate.
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