7 ms·

I don't think it worked out quite the way you said: http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/ http://crimeresearch.

I don't think it worked out quite the way you said: http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/ http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-b... Obligatory un-zeroed-axis warning, but the point stands.

notalaser 11y ago
I'm not familiar with that institution so I might be committing a blunder here, but their reporting seems incredibly biased for a "research" institution, and I can't help but wonder what methodology they're using to classify their data. E.g. take this article: http://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-falls-in-rank-for-fatalities-and-frequency-of-mass-public-shootings-now-ranks-11th-in-fatalities-and-12th-in-frequency/ http://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-f... . They're mentioning: - 303 deaths in the EU. This is simply an incorrect result, it counts victims from Norway, which is not an EU member. - Only 4 mass shootings in the US in 2015. I don't live in the US and I can name at least 6 that made the headlines over here in Europe (e.g. the Harris County mass shooting isn't included). - Hundreds of victims in France -- which is correct in terms of numbers, but most of them were victims of terrorist attacks, not mentally-deranged students who bought a rifle one sunny morning and started firing around. Most of those incidents barely match their own definition: "four or more people killed in a public place, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty". - A high number of victims for Norway, all of which are due to the Breivik incident. Limiting the debate to the Obama administration has the convenient consequence of keeping Norway's figures high. It would literally be twice as low if it were to include the Bush administration as well; I suspect the figure for the US wouldn't be twice as low in that case. Besides, the conclusion is highly debatable. It tries to obtain that "US becoming safer compared to Europe" but: - It does not include data from all European countries - It "statistically" (i.e. incorrectly) conflates countries with widely differing legislation and enforcement status. This is very blatantly wrong: Serbia, second in that list, has a very strong gun culture and very liberal gun ownership laws compared to other European countries. My Serbian friends can carry guns that are only issued to members of the police and military where I live. I don't know enough about how things are in the US to challenge that institution's opinions on the US, but their analysis of the European landscape is shaky at best, betrays a very obvious cluelesness about European laws and Europe in general, and frankly, I think the numbers are nicely tuned to give useful statistics.
- talmand 11y ago
  In my experience, all such research concerning guns, whether they be for or against, are full of shaky and questionable interpretations of data.
  - notalaser 11y ago
    But this doesn't include only questionable interpretations, it includes data that is outright incorrect.
adwf 11y ago
Terribly cherry-picked charts there. The UK had a spike in homicides in 2003, so what? The overall trend is clearly downwards. The 2009 firearm homicide rate is less than half the avg. rate for the 90's and I believe it has only gone down further since (cherry picked date ranges). Ireland had an increase in homicides following gun bans in the 70's? And it was the gun ban that caused it, not the Troubles? Likewise Jamaica - nothing at all to do with the massive increase in drug trafficking flowing through the Carribean, following the start of drug-prohibition in the 70's? EDIT: It turns out the data is dodgy as well. The spike is due to all 170+ of Harold Shipman's murders being recorded solely in 02/03
- marrs 11y ago
  Just google "gun crime rates in the UK". All the stats I've seen, and what I've been lead to believe in the news, is that gun crime rates have dramatically increased since the handgun ban (and illegal gun ownership has also increased). That's not to imply cause and effect, but I don't see any evidence that the handgun ban did anything to curb gun crime. Licensing rules were already very stringent at the time - you just can't compare it to the US - and Dunblane was a feak incident. I'm not aware of one like it before or since in the UK.
  - adwf 11y ago
    Nope, quite the opposite, gun deaths of all sorts are down substantially. Less than half what they used to be. And Dunblane wasn't a freak incident here's one from 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre Here's some data. Very clear downward trends since 1997. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_a... http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_gun_homicide http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_g... Here's the Australian chart just for good measure: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_al... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition...
akhatri_aus 11y ago
It certainly doesn't feel anything like the charts in this article. I've heard of crimes with that damned pocket knife but never a gun.
- youngone 11y ago
  > Data doesn't fit my pre-conceptions. Better ignore the data.
  - marklgr 11y ago
    You know you can find data supporting whatever you want, or at least casting doubts on whatever you don't like. This does not mean data is irrelevant, but it is quite important to know who collected it, following what procedure, and with what goal in mind. Not sure that study above is the most unbiased, for instance.
  - Loque 11y ago
    Come and try the UK for a bit. People do not have guns. If you like, take the time to go through the data and understand why it does not actually fit the reality of the situation here. Don't expect other people to disprove shit data.
    - talmand 11y ago
      Come and try the US for a bit. People have guns, most likely you won't have troubles with anything at all, and you'll have a great time.
  - akhatri_aus 11y ago
    I'm sorry, what I was trying to say was it'd be enlightening to see a news article (links?) on someone killed by a gun to correlate truth to anything with those stats or the implied representation anyway. Also it looks like you created a throwaway to say this. It says a lot about your conviction on what you're saying.
    - 11y ago
pjc50 11y ago
As soon as I saw John Lott, I knew I was going to be dealing with one-sided data. But I'm having trouble replicating that graph from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116417/hosb1011.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... It did point out that I was wrong about no mass shootings (p57): "In 2010/11, the police provisionally recorded 642 offences of homicide, which includes the 12 people killed by Derrick Bird in June 2010. Homicide offences increased by four per cent (24 offences) compared with 2009/10 (Table 2.04).3 Caution should be taken in looking at short term changes in the number of homicides, as they can fluctuate from year-to-year. For example, the rise in homicides this year follows a fall the previous year" But the dead giveaway is buried in a footnote on p58: "As measured by the Homicide Index. The number of currently recorded homicides peaked in 2001/02 at 794. There are more currently recorded homicides for 2002/03 (943), but these include the 172 victims of Harold Shipman, which were all recorded in 2002/03 but took place over a number of years." Harold Shipman was a doctor who spent a large part of his career murdering elderly patients with medication. The huge spike in John Lott's graph is almost entirely due to this one set of crimes being recorded in 2002/03.
- adwf 11y ago
  Ha, I knew there was something off about that spike. Well spotted. My point still stands below, despite that spike, the overall trend is still very much downwards. People just don't read charts very well.
- smcl 11y ago
  I was sure there was a nasty bit of deception going on, I was digging through gov.uk's England/Wales crime stats PDFs looking for the explanation and it seems you've figured it out :) However if my previous chats with pro-gun types are anything to go by, please don't be surprised if there's a reply along the lines of "so if that was the cause then why don't you go ban medication..."
  - mifdsfdrfes 11y ago
    Washington DC has the lowest gun ownership per capita and yet the highest gun murder rates in America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta... Please explain the lack of correlation between gun murders and gun ownership. Even when controlling for density, there is still no correlation.

notalaser 11y ago

I'm not familiar with that institution so I might be committing a blunder here, but their reporting seems incredibly biased for a "research" institution, and I can't help but wonder what methodology they're using to classify their data. E.g. take this article: http://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-falls-in-rank-for-fatalities-and-frequency-of-mass-public-shootings-now-ranks-11th-in-fatalities-and-12th-in-frequency/ http://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-f... . They're mentioning: - 303 deaths in the EU. This is simply an incorrect result, it counts victims from Norway, which is not an EU member. - Only 4 mass shootings in the US in 2015. I don't live in the US and I can name at least 6 that made the headlines over here in Europe (e.g. the Harris County mass shooting isn't included). - Hundreds of victims in France -- which is correct in terms of numbers, but most of them were victims of terrorist attacks, not mentally-deranged students who bought a rifle one sunny morning and started firing around. Most of those incidents barely match their own definition: "four or more people killed in a public place, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty". - A high number of victims for Norway, all of which are due to the Breivik incident. Limiting the debate to the Obama administration has the convenient consequence of keeping Norway's figures high. It would literally be twice as low if it were to include the Bush administration as well; I suspect the figure for the US wouldn't be twice as low in that case. Besides, the conclusion is highly debatable. It tries to obtain that "US becoming safer compared to Europe" but: - It does not include data from all European countries - It "statistically" (i.e. incorrectly) conflates countries with widely differing legislation and enforcement status. This is very blatantly wrong: Serbia, second in that list, has a very strong gun culture and very liberal gun ownership laws compared to other European countries. My Serbian friends can carry guns that are only issued to members of the police and military where I live. I don't know enough about how things are in the US to challenge that institution's opinions on the US, but their analysis of the European landscape is shaky at best, betrays a very obvious cluelesness about European laws and Europe in general, and frankly, I think the numbers are nicely tuned to give useful statistics.

talmand 11y ago
In my experience, all such research concerning guns, whether they be for or against, are full of shaky and questionable interpretations of data.
- notalaser 11y ago
  But this doesn't include only questionable interpretations, it includes data that is outright incorrect.

adwf 11y ago

Terribly cherry-picked charts there. The UK had a spike in homicides in 2003, so what? The overall trend is clearly downwards. The 2009 firearm homicide rate is less than half the avg. rate for the 90's and I believe it has only gone down further since (cherry picked date ranges). Ireland had an increase in homicides following gun bans in the 70's? And it was the gun ban that caused it, not the Troubles? Likewise Jamaica - nothing at all to do with the massive increase in drug trafficking flowing through the Carribean, following the start of drug-prohibition in the 70's? EDIT: It turns out the data is dodgy as well. The spike is due to all 170+ of Harold Shipman's murders being recorded solely in 02/03

marrs 11y ago
Just google "gun crime rates in the UK". All the stats I've seen, and what I've been lead to believe in the news, is that gun crime rates have dramatically increased since the handgun ban (and illegal gun ownership has also increased). That's not to imply cause and effect, but I don't see any evidence that the handgun ban did anything to curb gun crime. Licensing rules were already very stringent at the time - you just can't compare it to the US - and Dunblane was a feak incident. I'm not aware of one like it before or since in the UK.
- adwf 11y ago
  Nope, quite the opposite, gun deaths of all sorts are down substantially. Less than half what they used to be. And Dunblane wasn't a freak incident here's one from 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre Here's some data. Very clear downward trends since 1997. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_a... http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_gun_homicide http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_g... Here's the Australian chart just for good measure: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_al... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition...

akhatri_aus 11y ago

It certainly doesn't feel anything like the charts in this article. I've heard of crimes with that damned pocket knife but never a gun.

youngone 11y ago
> Data doesn't fit my pre-conceptions. Better ignore the data.
- marklgr 11y ago
  You know you can find data supporting whatever you want, or at least casting doubts on whatever you don't like. This does not mean data is irrelevant, but it is quite important to know who collected it, following what procedure, and with what goal in mind. Not sure that study above is the most unbiased, for instance.
- Loque 11y ago
  Come and try the UK for a bit. People do not have guns. If you like, take the time to go through the data and understand why it does not actually fit the reality of the situation here. Don't expect other people to disprove shit data.
  - talmand 11y ago
    Come and try the US for a bit. People have guns, most likely you won't have troubles with anything at all, and you'll have a great time.
- akhatri_aus 11y ago
  I'm sorry, what I was trying to say was it'd be enlightening to see a news article (links?) on someone killed by a gun to correlate truth to anything with those stats or the implied representation anyway. Also it looks like you created a throwaway to say this. It says a lot about your conviction on what you're saying.
  - 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

As soon as I saw John Lott, I knew I was going to be dealing with one-sided data. But I'm having trouble replicating that graph from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116417/hosb1011.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... It did point out that I was wrong about no mass shootings (p57): "In 2010/11, the police provisionally recorded 642 offences of homicide, which includes the 12 people killed by Derrick Bird in June 2010. Homicide offences increased by four per cent (24 offences) compared with 2009/10 (Table 2.04).3 Caution should be taken in looking at short term changes in the number of homicides, as they can fluctuate from year-to-year. For example, the rise in homicides this year follows a fall the previous year" But the dead giveaway is buried in a footnote on p58: "As measured by the Homicide Index. The number of currently recorded homicides peaked in 2001/02 at 794. There are more currently recorded homicides for 2002/03 (943), but these include the 172 victims of Harold Shipman, which were all recorded in 2002/03 but took place over a number of years." Harold Shipman was a doctor who spent a large part of his career murdering elderly patients with medication. The huge spike in John Lott's graph is almost entirely due to this one set of crimes being recorded in 2002/03.

adwf 11y ago
Ha, I knew there was something off about that spike. Well spotted. My point still stands below, despite that spike, the overall trend is still very much downwards. People just don't read charts very well.
smcl 11y ago
I was sure there was a nasty bit of deception going on, I was digging through gov.uk's England/Wales crime stats PDFs looking for the explanation and it seems you've figured it out :) However if my previous chats with pro-gun types are anything to go by, please don't be surprised if there's a reply along the lines of "so if that was the cause then why don't you go ban medication..."
- mifdsfdrfes 11y ago
  Washington DC has the lowest gun ownership per capita and yet the highest gun murder rates in America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta... Please explain the lack of correlation between gun murders and gun ownership. Even when controlling for density, there is still no correlation.