6 ms·

Why do you only look at gun deaths? Does it matter whether a criminal shoots or bludgeons someone to death? And if we compare all murder rates (not just those

by roel_v 10y ago

Why do you only look at gun deaths? Does it matter whether a criminal shoots or bludgeons someone to death? And if we compare all murder rates (not just those committed using guns), there is very little evidence that guns being available to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminals (even if that makes it easier for criminals to get guns) causes higher murder rates. There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US.

KirinDave 10y ago
The subject of the conversation is gun deaths. That's why. We weren't talking about knives, ropes, shuriken, or feral animal mauling. > And if we compare all murder rates (not just those committed using guns), there is very little evidence that guns being available to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminals (even if that makes it easier for criminals to get guns) causes higher murder rates. Citation needed. Every source I can find suggests that the US has more violent crime per unit population than most other developed countries in the world, and in terms of actual fatalities gun crime leads. Can you provide some sources for this assertion? > There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US. Which first world countries with strict gun control laws have a higher overall murder rate? Because it's not fair to compare underdeveloped nations to developed nations in terms of public order.
- roel_v 10y ago
  "The subject of the conversation is gun deaths." But it's a wholly irrelevant metric. The argument is 'we should restrict guns in the US because they're causing more people to be killed than in other countries'. But if in other countries people are being bludgeoned, then what good would restricting guns do? Hence, you need to compare murder rate, not gun murder rate. This is such an obvious point, I don't see any way someone using only gun deaths in the US isn't begin deliberately obtuse. "Can you provide some sources for this assertion?" Well how about an obvious one, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... . Of course it's easy to pick a bunch of countries, like say based on GDP and then completely ignore geographic and socio-economic circumstances and say 'look at horrible the US is!' (this is the tactic most anti-gun lobbyists use - taking Western Europe and comparing the gun deaths there to the gun deaths in the US, and then go all 'tss tss look at how backwards the US is'). But if you look at the total number of homicides, the US is in the middle of the pack, with less homicides per capita than say Argentina, or Lithuania, or Turkey; and the same as, say, Iran - which I imagine (although I'll admit I haven't looked into it) has very strict gun laws. Or even Mexico - but then people say 'but but drug war!'. Sure, but so is the US; i.e. a large percentage of homicides are part of drug-related crime violence. It's easy to cherry pick a few countries that have lower homicide rates than the US and say 'it's because of stricter gun laws'. And yet Switzerland is near the top of that list (i.e., few homicides - depends on how you sort it, obviously :) ) and the Swiss have gun ownership rates comparable to those of the US! Could it be (gasp!) that overall economic prosperity, social homogeneity and income equality are better predictors of homicide (and other crime) rates? No that can't be it, we need to take the guns away!
  - Frondo 10y ago
    You can say it's irrelevant, but obviously lots of us find it quite relevant. (Telling us again it's irrelevant is not persuasive.) I also don't need to look to other countries to ask whether a given law makes sense. If it makes sense (reduce the prevalence of guns to curb gun deaths), I'd vote for that no matter what other countries were doing. If the cultural mix here makes guns more deadly than in a more uniform society, well, then that's just what we're dealing with, and let's figure out what to do about guns deaths in that context instead of saying "well, can't do nothin'." Aaaand, if we're talking about developed nations, then neither Argentina, Lithuania, nor Turkey are on that list. They're all still considered developing nations. Saying that the U.S. is in the middle of the pack of developing nations is pretty shameful for us.
    - roel_v 10y ago
      I read your comment three times; I'm really trying to interpret it generously; yet I fail to conclude anything else than that you're saying: - 'I don't care about no stinking facts! I feel xyz, and you haven't changed my feelings, so nanana!' (your references to what 'a lot of you find relevant' for no apparent reason, and how it 'makes sense') - You're rather presumptuous, provincial and frankly borderline xenophobic in your assumptions about other countries. Because these countries have a lower GDP, they're some backwater shitholes that can't be compared to the US? Because for example Argentina isn't all that far behind the US in, say, the human development index (because I happened to have a tab open on that from looking it up for another comment in this thread). If that hurts your little feelings of assumed American superiority over other countries in every aspect, well then that's on you. (PS and this is not even considering that the US is a huge country and that it makes more sense to compare per state; which makes my points all the more poignant. I mean, let's talk about homicide rates for Idaho; or New Hampshire; or Wyoming and compare those to other countries! Geez those Canadians and French are even more murderous than those New Hampshirites who don't even have to register any gun they buy!). (edit: added newline because my list was smashed into one paragraph; replaced 'racist' with 'xenophobic')
      - vchynarov 10y ago
- kofejnik 10y ago
  Strawman, as USA has the highest murder rate of all first-world nations. Counterexample - Switzerland. "The Small Arms Survey of 2007 placed Swiss gun ownership per capita at between 30% and 60%", but with a much lower murder rate than the US
na85 10y ago
>There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US. Name an industrialized/developed nation with strict gun control with a higher rate of gun deaths than the US. I'll wait.
- roel_v 10y ago
  Sure, if you constrain the discussion in such a way that you restrict the candidate set to only countries that have lower homicide rates than the US, the result set is empty. But even then; let's take all countries with a human development index in the 'very high' or 'high' categories; there is Argentina, Turkey, Russia, ... Or I can just as easily flip this around: why don't you list some countries with as high economic inequality and poverty problems, and as diverse a social make up, with strict gun control laws that has lower homicide rates? If you're going to subset countries into comparable groups, at least do it on honest criteria - like relative poverty rates or other income inequality metrics. Then it becomes obvious quite soon that the major driver of crime is (get this!) economic in nature. (edit: changed 'you if' to 'if you')
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    Are there any countries with comparable inequality and diversity? Only South Africa and maybe Australia come to mind, but I think even those lag behind on diversity quite a bit.
    - kofejnik 10y ago
      Devils advocate asks: so maybe it's diversity that causes higher murder rate, not guns? Switzerland has very low crime afair
      - ajmurmann 10y ago
        I totally got your point and you actually convinced me of it. I do wonder though if given the diversity and disparity of income banning guns wouldn't help getting the homicide rate down. Even though the guns aren't causing the issue (as you well demonstrated) they might be exacerbating it. We are not gonna make the US magically less diverse and unfortunately won't close the income gap over night. I was still curious though if there are other countries with the same diversity and wealth gap. That's what prompted my original comment.
legulere 10y ago
The USA is the only developed country which shows up in the list of the 50 cities with the highest murder rates in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate It matters because guns are more effective at killing people. You easier kill someone with a gun than with anything else which makes criminals more likely to do it. My guess is that there is indeed a correlation between availability of weapons to criminals and murders. There are also other ways of obtaining weapons for criminals: From the military, which you see for instance in eastern europe. Or from other countries with lax weapon laws, like most of the Americas get their weapons from the US. The USA does not even need to outlaw weapons, but it certainly needs better regulations.
- roel_v 10y ago
  Ah yes, the venerable 'we can't stoop so low as to be comparing ourselves to those barbarians in countries where they don't even speak English, can we' argument.

by roel_v 10y ago

KirinDave 10y ago

The subject of the conversation is gun deaths. That's why. We weren't talking about knives, ropes, shuriken, or feral animal mauling. > And if we compare all murder rates (not just those committed using guns), there is very little evidence that guns being available to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminals (even if that makes it easier for criminals to get guns) causes higher murder rates. Citation needed. Every source I can find suggests that the US has more violent crime per unit population than most other developed countries in the world, and in terms of actual fatalities gun crime leads. Can you provide some sources for this assertion? > There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US. Which first world countries with strict gun control laws have a higher overall murder rate? Because it's not fair to compare underdeveloped nations to developed nations in terms of public order.

roel_v 10y ago
"The subject of the conversation is gun deaths." But it's a wholly irrelevant metric. The argument is 'we should restrict guns in the US because they're causing more people to be killed than in other countries'. But if in other countries people are being bludgeoned, then what good would restricting guns do? Hence, you need to compare murder rate, not gun murder rate. This is such an obvious point, I don't see any way someone using only gun deaths in the US isn't begin deliberately obtuse. "Can you provide some sources for this assertion?" Well how about an obvious one, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... . Of course it's easy to pick a bunch of countries, like say based on GDP and then completely ignore geographic and socio-economic circumstances and say 'look at horrible the US is!' (this is the tactic most anti-gun lobbyists use - taking Western Europe and comparing the gun deaths there to the gun deaths in the US, and then go all 'tss tss look at how backwards the US is'). But if you look at the total number of homicides, the US is in the middle of the pack, with less homicides per capita than say Argentina, or Lithuania, or Turkey; and the same as, say, Iran - which I imagine (although I'll admit I haven't looked into it) has very strict gun laws. Or even Mexico - but then people say 'but but drug war!'. Sure, but so is the US; i.e. a large percentage of homicides are part of drug-related crime violence. It's easy to cherry pick a few countries that have lower homicide rates than the US and say 'it's because of stricter gun laws'. And yet Switzerland is near the top of that list (i.e., few homicides - depends on how you sort it, obviously :) ) and the Swiss have gun ownership rates comparable to those of the US! Could it be (gasp!) that overall economic prosperity, social homogeneity and income equality are better predictors of homicide (and other crime) rates? No that can't be it, we need to take the guns away!
- Frondo 10y ago
  You can say it's irrelevant, but obviously lots of us find it quite relevant. (Telling us again it's irrelevant is not persuasive.) I also don't need to look to other countries to ask whether a given law makes sense. If it makes sense (reduce the prevalence of guns to curb gun deaths), I'd vote for that no matter what other countries were doing. If the cultural mix here makes guns more deadly than in a more uniform society, well, then that's just what we're dealing with, and let's figure out what to do about guns deaths in that context instead of saying "well, can't do nothin'." Aaaand, if we're talking about developed nations, then neither Argentina, Lithuania, nor Turkey are on that list. They're all still considered developing nations. Saying that the U.S. is in the middle of the pack of developing nations is pretty shameful for us.
  - roel_v 10y ago
    I read your comment three times; I'm really trying to interpret it generously; yet I fail to conclude anything else than that you're saying: - 'I don't care about no stinking facts! I feel xyz, and you haven't changed my feelings, so nanana!' (your references to what 'a lot of you find relevant' for no apparent reason, and how it 'makes sense') - You're rather presumptuous, provincial and frankly borderline xenophobic in your assumptions about other countries. Because these countries have a lower GDP, they're some backwater shitholes that can't be compared to the US? Because for example Argentina isn't all that far behind the US in, say, the human development index (because I happened to have a tab open on that from looking it up for another comment in this thread). If that hurts your little feelings of assumed American superiority over other countries in every aspect, well then that's on you. (PS and this is not even considering that the US is a huge country and that it makes more sense to compare per state; which makes my points all the more poignant. I mean, let's talk about homicide rates for Idaho; or New Hampshire; or Wyoming and compare those to other countries! Geez those Canadians and French are even more murderous than those New Hampshirites who don't even have to register any gun they buy!). (edit: added newline because my list was smashed into one paragraph; replaced 'racist' with 'xenophobic')
    - vchynarov 10y ago
kofejnik 10y ago
Strawman, as USA has the highest murder rate of all first-world nations. Counterexample - Switzerland. "The Small Arms Survey of 2007 placed Swiss gun ownership per capita at between 30% and 60%", but with a much lower murder rate than the US

na85 10y ago

>There are many countries with strict gun control laws that have higher murder rates than the US. Name an industrialized/developed nation with strict gun control with a higher rate of gun deaths than the US. I'll wait.

roel_v 10y ago
Sure, if you constrain the discussion in such a way that you restrict the candidate set to only countries that have lower homicide rates than the US, the result set is empty. But even then; let's take all countries with a human development index in the 'very high' or 'high' categories; there is Argentina, Turkey, Russia, ... Or I can just as easily flip this around: why don't you list some countries with as high economic inequality and poverty problems, and as diverse a social make up, with strict gun control laws that has lower homicide rates? If you're going to subset countries into comparable groups, at least do it on honest criteria - like relative poverty rates or other income inequality metrics. Then it becomes obvious quite soon that the major driver of crime is (get this!) economic in nature. (edit: changed 'you if' to 'if you')
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  Are there any countries with comparable inequality and diversity? Only South Africa and maybe Australia come to mind, but I think even those lag behind on diversity quite a bit.
  - kofejnik 10y ago
    Devils advocate asks: so maybe it's diversity that causes higher murder rate, not guns? Switzerland has very low crime afair
    - ajmurmann 10y ago
      I totally got your point and you actually convinced me of it. I do wonder though if given the diversity and disparity of income banning guns wouldn't help getting the homicide rate down. Even though the guns aren't causing the issue (as you well demonstrated) they might be exacerbating it. We are not gonna make the US magically less diverse and unfortunately won't close the income gap over night. I was still curious though if there are other countries with the same diversity and wealth gap. That's what prompted my original comment.

legulere 10y ago

The USA is the only developed country which shows up in the list of the 50 cities with the highest murder rates in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate It matters because guns are more effective at killing people. You easier kill someone with a gun than with anything else which makes criminals more likely to do it. My guess is that there is indeed a correlation between availability of weapons to criminals and murders. There are also other ways of obtaining weapons for criminals: From the military, which you see for instance in eastern europe. Or from other countries with lax weapon laws, like most of the Americas get their weapons from the US. The USA does not even need to outlaw weapons, but it certainly needs better regulations.

roel_v 10y ago
Ah yes, the venerable 'we can't stoop so low as to be comparing ourselves to those barbarians in countries where they don't even speak English, can we' argument.